In emergency care we make decisions fast. Sometimes we need time and space to go back over one — a grey area, a call that still sits with you, a skill that's gone rusty. That's what Kāpehu Whetū is for. A small group, a few days, somewhere worth being. Take the time to find your direction, and come back to work sharper.
A kāpehu whetū is a star compass. Wayfinding isn't sailing without instruments — it's continuous assessment, and the knowledge accrues in the navigator over years. Same as ours.
"The gift of the wayfinder's journey is not arrival at a destination, it is who we become along the way as we fulfil our potential."2
He waka eke noa — we're all in this canoe together.
Keep going to ACEM and ACEP. That's where the research lands and where the specialty argues things out, and we're not trying to compete with it. Compass is for the things that need time rather than an audience: the decision you'd like to think through properly, the procedure you haven't done in a year, the handover that still bugs you. Small groups, no stage, no microphone. Then something in the water or on a trail, and a decent night's sleep. Bring your whānau — most of us are trying to do this without losing another week away from home.
Some skills fade if you don't use them. Surgical airway. Paediatric doses. The procedure you've done twice. We get hands on the kit and repeat it until it's smooth, with someone watching who'll tell you straight. 15–20 documented hours, mapped to ACEM CPD categories.
Rangirua — of two minds. Who doesn't get the scan. When to stop. The patient you're still not sure about. In wayfinding, "sometimes the 'signs' are just a funny feeling… that it is time to slow the waka down and look around."2 Trained perception, not a hunch. Small group, everyone in it, nobody presenting.
Surf, swim, ride, ski or walk. It's on the timetable, not squeezed around it. Graded so you're fine whether it's your first time on a board or your thirtieth year in the surf. Every destination earns its place on what you can do in the afternoon.
Breathwork, mindfulness that's actually been tested (MBSR), Te Whare Tapa Whā, cold water, and enough sleep to notice the difference. Seasons picked around cyclones, swell, snow and school holidays — nobody's flying into a monsoon. This job takes it out of you. The point is to put some back.
Each one is picked for two things: somewhere the teaching works, and something worth doing when it finishes. Season strips run January → December — green is the good window, red is the one to avoid (cyclones, monsoon, heat, closed trails), grey is shoulder season.
Resus, paeds, envenomation and retrieval medicine before lunch; snorkelling, paddling and a very slow afternoon after it. Kids' club runs during sessions. Direct AKL/WLG→NAN (~3h).
South Pacific cyclone season runs Nov–Apr — we schedule May–Oct only. July aligns with NZ/AU winter school holidays for family retreats.
Our flagship wellness + skills retreat: morning yoga and MBSR-based mindfulness, technical skills refreshers (airway, POCUS), body work, and resilience teaching. Detail in the Wellness section.
Dry season Apr–Oct. May–Jun and Sep avoid both the wet and the Jul–Aug crowd peak. Pairs with Bali Emergency Care Conference (Oct).
Forty minutes from the department and it may as well be another country. Breathwork and cold-water work with an experienced facilitator, surf coaching on the black sand, and clinical sessions on what this coast actually throws at us — drowning and immersion, hypoxia, hypothermia, spinal injury in the surf, and the physiology behind the breath-holds you'll be doing. No flights, no jet lag. You can drive out after a night shift.
Warmest water and most forgiving surf Feb–Apr and Nov. Winter still works for breathwork and cold exposure — that's rather the point — but the swell gets serious. All water sessions run with surf lifesaving cover; Piha's rips are not a place to learn unsupervised.
Whakarewarewa Forest singletrack by afternoon; trauma, orthopaedic and prehospital curriculum by morning. Guided rides graded to ability, skills coaching included. Geothermal recovery soaks.
Best trail conditions Feb–Apr and Nov. March = Crankworx Rotorua (book around it, or into it). Winter rideable but wet.
Winter EM: hypothermia, avalanche and alpine trauma, prehospital care — then first tracks at the Remarkables or Coronet Peak. All abilities; someone will teach you to ski if you've never been. Pairs with EMS Queenstown (Jul) for a double-CME trip.
Ski season Jul–Sep. Avoid the first fortnight of July (NZ school holidays) for adults-only; use it deliberately for family retreats.
Small-island EM: resource-limited care, retrieval, marine envenomation and tropical medicine — on an island you can cycle around in an hour and swim off almost any beach. Lagoon snorkelling most afternoons. Direct AKL→RAR (~4h).
Same cyclone calendar as Fiji: May–Oct only. June–Sep offers dry 24–26°C days.
A week riding Provence or the Alps — Ventoux, Alpe d'Huez — with a sports & exercise medicine + cardiology-in-the-ED curriculum. July option follows the Tour de France roadside for a day.
Cols open Jun–Sep. July = Le Tour atmosphere (and crowds); September = quiet roads, best light. Pairs with EUSEM Paris (late Sep).
Geriatric EM and toxicology in the mornings, history-of-medicine walking seminars in Siena and Florence, long rides or long lunches between. Cooking one meal together is on the programme, not optional.
May–Jun and Sep–Oct are ideal; Jul–Aug means 35°C+ and peak crowds — avoid.
Disaster medicine & mass-casualty systems (Japan is the world reference), ageing-population EM, plus zen garden mindfulness sessions and onsen recovery. Temples at dawn, seminars mid-morning.
Sakura late Mar–Apr or autumn colour Oct–Nov. Avoid Jun–Aug humidity and typhoon tail-risk.
Ski-in critical care: mountain medicine, hypothermia & avalanche resus, helicopter retrieval insights — scheduled against The Big Sick (Feb) so you can stack both in one trip.
Ski season Dec–Apr; summer alpine hiking Jul–Aug also works. February = The Big Sick week.
North American trauma systems, ski-patrol medicine and cold injury — timed against the Western Trauma Association meeting (Feb, Whistler 2027) for a two-conference itinerary.
Ski Dec–Mar; world-class MTB park Jul–Aug. Feb 2027 = WTA at the Fairmont Château Whistler.
Two things wreck a destination course: cyclone season (Nov–Apr across the South Pacific) and school holidays, which double the airfares. Unless the whole point is bringing the kids — then we book straight into them.
| Destination | Prime window | Avoid | Family timing (AU/NZ hols) | Pairs with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🏝️ Fiji | May – Oct | Nov – Apr (cyclones) | Early–mid July | CT Acute Med Conference (Jul) |
| 🌺 Rarotonga | May – Oct | Nov – Apr (cyclones) | Early–mid July | — |
| 🌿 Bali (Ubud) | Apr – Oct | Nov – Mar (monsoon) | Early July · late Sep | Bali Emergency Care Conf (Oct) |
| 🌊 Piha (NZ) | Feb – Apr · Nov | Jun – Aug (heavy swell) | April school hols | No flights — drive from Auckland |
| 🚵 Rotorua | Feb – Apr · Nov | Jun – Aug (wet trails) | April school hols | Crankworx (Mar) |
| ⛷️ Queenstown | Jul – Sep (ski) | May – Jun (shoulder) | First 2 wks July | EMS Queenstown Conf (Jul) |
| 🚴 France cycling | Jun – Sep | Nov – Mar (cols closed) | July (NZ/AU winter hols + Le Tour) | EUSEM Paris (late Sep) · Le Tour (Jul) |
| 🏛️ Tuscany | May – Jun · Sep – Oct | Jul – Aug (heat, crowds) | Late Sep – Oct hols | EUSEM (Sep) · ICEM Hamburg (Jun 2026) |
| ⛩️ Kyoto | Mar – Apr · Oct – Nov | Jun – Aug (humidity) | April school hols (sakura) | — |
| 🏔️ Zermatt | Dec – Apr (ski) | May · Nov (shoulder) | — (adults-only) | The Big Sick (Feb) |
| 🍁 Whistler | Dec – Mar · Jul – Aug | Apr – May · Oct – Nov | — (adults-only) | WTA Annual Meeting (Feb 2027) |
Not our timetable — a wayfinding framework named by Cadence Kaumoana, from markers taught by Rereata Makiha.1 Five phases, and the fifth turns back into the first. Good clinical learning tends to move the same way.
Set a direction. Spin the waka if you need to.
Read what's actually in front of you.
Test it against people who'll be honest.
It holds — or you go back and begin again.
Recognised together, not alone.
Engari ko te whakatika kē o ngā rā, ka tae ora te waka ki uta. It is the setting of the sails that enables a canoe to reach its destination.1
1 Kaumoana, C. (2021). Once were navigators. MAI Journal, 10(2), 137–147. doi.org/10.20507/MAIJournal.2021.10.2.7 · 2 Spiller, Barclay-Kerr & Panoho (2015). Wayfinding Leadership. Huia.
Te Arahina isn't ours. We reference it because it shapes how we think, not because we own it. Before any retreat charges a fee we'll seek the author's permission — and take her direction, including if that's no.
Each one pairs proper teaching with something worth getting up for. Where it makes sense you go home with the kit you trained on, not a tote bag. Registration is itemised — education, equipment and personal costs invoiced separately — so the paperwork stays simple.
Whāia te iti kahurangi — pursue the treasure you hold most dear.
We all know the burnout numbers in this specialty, and most of us have been offered a resilience webinar in response. This isn't that. No crystals either. Practices that have been studied, a framework with real depth behind it, and enough time off to feel it.
Built on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) — the 8-week Kabat-Zinn protocol, the most studied mindfulness intervention in clinicians. Meta-analyses show moderate reductions in burnout and perceived-stress scores in physicians. Retreats deliver the intensive foundation; a facilitated 8-week online follow-through completes the protocol. We also teach brief on-shift tools: box breathing, 90-second resets between resus cases, and pre-shift intention setting.
Sir Mason Durie's 1984 model frames health as a wharenui with four walls: taha tinana (physical), taha hinengaro (mental & emotional), taha whānau (family & connection) and taha wairua (spiritual) — standing on whenua (land, foundation). It's the reason our retreats include whānau options, connection to place, and reflective practice — not just exercise and lectures. Sessions are developed with Māori health practitioners and delivered with appropriate tikanga.
Daily yoga (yin + vinyasa options), guided breathwork, massage, and cold/heat contrast where the destination provides it (geothermal in Rotorua, onsen in Kyoto). Sleep education targeted at shift workers — the single highest-yield wellness intervention for ED physicians.
Peer-led sessions on moral injury, being the second victim after a bad outcome, cognitive load, and how to argue for a better roster. Some of what's wearing you down isn't yours to fix alone — and saying so out loud with colleagues helps.
| Day | Morning (CPD) | Midday | Afternoon | Evening |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Tinana | Welcome + whakawhanaungatanga · burnout science & self-assessment (2h) | Long lunch | Yin yoga + retreat orientation | Group dinner |
| 2 · Hinengaro | MBSR foundation workshop (3h) · on-shift micro-practices | Massage block 1 | Free / pool / Ubud walk | Guided meditation |
| 3 · Skills | Airway refresher + difficult airway drills (3h, manikin) | Lunch | POCUS skills stations (2h CPD) | Free evening |
| 4 · Whānau | Moral injury & second victim peer sessions (2.5h) | Massage block 2 | Rice-terrace hike or surf option | Fire ceremony + reflection |
| 5 · Wairua | Difficult conversations masterclass (2h) · personal wellbeing plan using Te Whare Tapa Whā (1.5h) | Closing circle | Departures | — |
15 documented CPD hours mapped to ACEM categories (clinical + professionalism). Optional partner program runs in parallel for accompanying whānau.
We're after FACEMs and intensivists who teach well and travel light. Faculty come at cost, get an honorarium, and log CPD for teaching. One retreat a year is enough — we'd rather you kept doing it than burned out on it.
Partners join the retreat properly — teaching a skills station, not standing behind a pull-up banner in a corridor. Ultrasound partners supply Format A hardware at education pricing. Sponsorship never buys curriculum control, and we say so on every programme.
Registration, sponsorship and equipment partnerships cover venue, faculty and insurance. Break-even is around 14 delegates; numbers are capped at 24 because past that it stops being a retreat and starts being a conference.
Educational content is peer-reviewed by an independent FACEM advisory group. CPD hours are documented to ACEM standards with attendance certificates. Financial interests are declared on every program.
We're working out which of these to run first (Piha Mar 2027 · Fiji Jul 2027 · Rotorua Mar 2027 · Bali Sep 2027 · France Sep 2027). No deposit, no obligation, no follow-up sales call. Just tell us what you'd come to and we'll build that one.
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