dr geehr and dr ken kizer the group is now the largest membership organization in its field and has hosted events like a trek to a mount everest base camp and a trip to a station in the utah desert that simulates life on marsdr auerbach joined stanford as chief of its emergency medicine division in 1991 he left the university four years later to work in the private health care sector before returning to the university in 2005 and remaining there until his retirement earlier this yearhe became an elder statesman in his field he spoke at conferences around the world in one case describing how the erectiledysfunction pill viagra can be used to treat high altitude pulmonary edema because it reduces artery pressureat stanford dr auerbach encouraged his students foremost to respect the outdoorswhen house staff and residents and young doctors say how do i learn wilderness medicine my very first answer to them always is learn the wilderness first he said in the stanford interview because you cant help anybody if youre just scrambling to keep yourself aliveimagecreditchuck liddythe news observerin 2010 when an earthquake devastated haiti dr auerbach traveled to the country with a team of emergency medical workers and despite his years of experience he found the trip harrowing a few years later when an earthquake hit nepal he went there to assist with emergency care and later helped establish a hospital theredr auerbach said it was imperative never to get too comfortable when dealing with the whims of nature you have to be afraid when you go into work he said you have to stay humblepaul stuart auerbach was born on jan 4 1951 in plainfield nj his father victor was a patents manager for union carbide his mother leona fishkin auerbach was a teacher paul was on his high school wrestling team and grew up spending summers on the jersey shorehe graduated from duke in 1973 with a bachelors degree in religion and then enrolled in dukes medical school he met sherry steindorf at ucla and they were married in 1982 in the 1980s he worked parttime as a sportswear model dr auerbach studied at stanfords business school shortly before joining the universitys medical faculty in 1991in addition to his wife he is survived by two sons brian and daniel a daughter lauren auerbach dixon his mother a brother burt and a sister jan shermanas he grew older dr auerbach became increasingly devoted to expanding the field of wilderness medicine to account for the uncertainties of a new world in revising his textbook he added sections about handling environmental disasters and with jay lemery he wrote enviromedics the impact of climate change on human health published in 2017last year shortly before he received his cancer diagnosis the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold and dr auerbach decided to actthe minute it all first happened he started working on disaster response his wife said hospitals were running out of ppe he was calling