Matthew D. Wilson

Matthew D. Wilson, MD, is an attending physician in Emergency Medicine, MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC); attending pediatric emergency physician, MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center; medical director, National Park Service, National Capital Region; and assistant professor, Georgetown University School of Medicine.

At MedStar, Dr. Wilson serves on the MWHC task force for quality improvement of the emergency resuscitation process for patients with critical airways, increasing the effectiveness of the resuscitation team in managing these emergency situations. Dr. Wilson previously served on a task force to evaluate the safety of Dilaudid use in the emergency department.

In his work for the National Park Service, he covers an area including Harper’s Ferry, Prince William Forest, Rock Creek Park, and the National Mall. On Independence Day, this work involves coordinating a team to provide care for the crowds of people who gather on the Mall. While this team is prepared to address conditions resulting from drug overdose to acts of terrorism, the patient condition most often encountered on July 4 is heat stroke.

His experience and enthusiasm for emergency medicine and the outdoors have equipped him with the skills and background to teach emergency and wilderness medicine. He serves as course director for Wilderness Medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. In this capacity, he teaches students to apply their medical knowledge to the challenging environmental conditions encountered when treating patients injured in remote settings and through outdoor activities, such as hiking, skiing, rock climbing, or kayaking. In addition, he is an ambulatory-care preceptor for first- and second-year medical students. His dedication to medical education and research can be seen in his mentoring of the emergency medicine residents, particularly in his advisory work for quality improvement projects and on the Journal Club.

Dr. Wilson received a commendation for his service in teaching Park Service Rangers and a scholarship award from the Georgetown/MWHC Emergency Medicine Program for outstanding work in research and academics. On a broader level, Dr. Wilson is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and he reviews manuscripts for the Journal of Toxicology-Clinical Toxicology, the Journal of Emergency Medicine, and Wilderness and Environmental Medicine.

Dr. Wilson’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Resuscitation; American Journal of Emergency Medicine; Wilderness and Environmental Medicine; Annals of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology; and Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He shares his expertise with his colleagues and emergency medicine residents at Georgetown through presentations of his research. Topics of his presentations have included wilderness trauma and evacuation, hypothermia, chest tubes and suturing, traumatic brain injury, atypical meningoencephalitides, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, statistics for clinical research, altitude illness, and suicide risk stratification.

Dr. Wilson is board certified in emergency medicine. His primary language is English, and he has limited proficiency in Spanish.

His medical degree is from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA. He completed an internship and residency in emergency medicine through the combined MedStar Georgetown University Hospital/MWHC program. In addition, he completed the National Institutes of Health’s Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Clinical Research certification.

Research Interests

Dr. Wilson’s research interests include the following:

Wilderness medicine

• Medication/device trials
• Hyperkalemia management
• Emergency department resource utilization
• Angioedema

Selected Research

Prospective Medication/Device Trials

Dr. Wilson has been involved in prospective evaluations of antithrombotic reversal agents, angioedema treatments, sickle cell pain management, and proprietary medical device trials.

Wilderness Medicine

Dr. Wilson has studied therapeutic hypothermia, drug abuse patterns, and the epidemiology of wilderness injuries. He has published on the management of diarrhea in the emergency setting.

Emergency Resource Utilization

Dr. Wilson has published multiple studies on emergency department resource utilization, including multicenter studies of computed tomography-angiography utilization for pulmonary embolism, cardiac catheterization, and nephrolithiasis. He also has collaborated on studies of operational metrics and outpatient urgent cardiac management.

Selected Publications

Wilson MD, Davis JE. Antithrombotic reversal agents. Emerg Med Clin North Am. 2014;32:715-25. doi: 10.1016/j.emc.2014.04.013.

Dubin J, Kiechle E, Wilson M, Timbol C, Bhat R, Milzman D. Mean HEART scores for hospitalized chest pain patients are higher in more experienced providers. Am J Emerg Med. 2017:35:122-125. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2016.10.037

Dimyan M, Perez M, Auh S, Tarula E, Wilson MD, Cohen L. Nonparetic arm force does not overinhibit the paretic arm in chronic poststroke hemiparesis. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2014;95:849-56. doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2013.12.023.

Wilson MD, Frohna W, Trent G, Sauter D. Evaluating for seasonal variation in angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor– and angiotensin receptor blocker-induced angioedema. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2014;112:178-179. doi: 10.1016/j.anai.2013.11.016

Wilson MD, Coury T, Napoli AM, Daniels J, Milzman D. Injury patterns in recreational alpine skiing and snowboarding at a mountainside clinic. Wilderness Environ Med. 2013;24:417-421. doi: 10.1016/j.wem.2013.07.002.

Wilson MD, Ferguson RW, Mazer ME, Litovitz TL. Monitoring trends in dextromethorphan abuse using the National Poison Data System: 2000 – 2010. Clin Toxicol. 2011;49:409–415. doi: 10.3109/15563650.2011.585429.

Visit Dr. Wilson’s clinical practice page.