2022 Peter Mucha, Jr. MD Visiting Professor Surgery Grand Rounds
Announcing the WVU Department of Surgery Grand Rounds 2022 Peter Mucha, Jr. MD Visiting Professor Jennifer M. Gurney, MD, FACS.
Dr. Alison Wilson will providing introductions for Dr. Gurney to present her lecture both in person and virtually on December 7, 2022, from 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. The lecture given by Dr. Gurney is titled Care on the Battlefield: Crossroads of the Military and Civilian Trauma Systems – Yesterday’s Medicine Tomorrow. The lecture location will be the WVU Health Sciences Center Learning Center Commons, Okey Patteson Auditorium, room 1175.
Surgery Resident Case Conference to be held at the WVU Health Science Center, 2nd Floor, Pathology Amphitheatre, room 2118 from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
The Zoom link will be available to WVU faculty, residents, medical students, and clinical staff as with all Grand Rounds. For others to join please email Dr. David Borgstrom at dcborgstrom@hsc.wvu.edu who will be the Zoom administrator.
COL Jennifer Gurney has worked with JTS since 2012 in one capacity or another and as the new Joint Trauma System Chief. She has dedicated her career to improving care of the combat casualty, making her an ideal candidate to lead JTS.
COL Gurney helped run the world-renowned Burn Care Unit as the Deputy Director, where she is the go-to expert for Burn Care and a teacher to residents. She provides strategic guidance to the Joint Trauma System trauma care delivery team as Chief of Trauma Systems Development. She chaired the Joint Trauma System Defense Committees of Trauma, leading over 150 subject matter experts in prehospital, surgical, and en route care in a multidisciplinary and tri-service collaboration to guide Department of Defense trauma care. Her leadership supported the development of consensus clinical practice recommendations that have been adopted by international partners as best practice in military and civilian trauma care. As Chair, she codified the charter and established the Advanced Resuscitative Care working group responsible for developing lifesaving resuscitation guidelines and best practices.
COL Gurney has led efforts to better surgical practices and procedures across the globe, from working with Honduran surgeons to share knowledge to reviewing combat mortalities in South Combatant Command Medical Doctor to assessing the African CCMD trauma system through surveys of Role 1 and Role 2 care and onsite visits. As the Army State representative to the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, COL Gurney supported the development of the military-civilian partnership guide. She helped develop the Combat Readiness metrics for deploying surgeons. Referred to the Joint Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Project, COL Gurney has been a leader in establishing the detailed expectations for expeditionary surgery. She was first to evaluate the epidemiology and trends of injury among U.S. female service members in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
COL Gurney joined the U.S. Army while at Boston University Medical School. She was Chief of General Surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany from 2011 to 2013 and the William Beaumont Army Medical Center from 2007 to 2009. She deployed seven times, serving as the Theater Trauma Director in Operation Inherent Resolve in her last deployment to Iraq. Her tenure resulted in the Central Command's most comprehensive analysis of whole blood utilization in combat trauma and directly led to the adoption of whole blood use in the prehospital setting in several civilian regional trauma systems.
COL Gurney received a Legion of Merit with a 'C' (combat) device, three Bronze Star Medals, a Combat Action Badge, and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for wartime service. She has had the opportunity to work at every level of care after Role 1 in the deployed battlefield trauma system.
In conference circles, COL Gurney became known for the JTS Case Records Panel she moderated. The panel of trauma surgeons (civilian and military) retrospectively evaluated trauma cases. The case files forum was so well received that the series was made into a podcast.