Message from the Division Chief

Welcome to the Division of Trauma, Burns, Critical Care & Acute Care Surgery!

Our division is among the most dynamic academic trauma institutions in the country and it is an essential component in the delivery of patient care at UC Irvine Medical Center as well as in training and research at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine.

Our goals are to:

• Provide outstanding healthcare to adults and children suffering acute injury or critical illness
• Train highly competent clinical and academic surgeons as well as surgical intensivists
• Explore the mechanism and treatment of injury and critical illness through rigorous bench and clinical research

The clinical activities of our division are centered at UC Irvine Medical Center in the Trauma Center, the Regional Burn Center and the Emergency Department. We recently moved into the state-of-science UC Irvine Douglas Hospital, which is equipped with a 24-bed surgical intensive care unit, an eight-bed burn unit and a 32-bed surgical step-down unit.

At UC Irvine Douglas Hospital, we also have a dedicated trauma operating room solely for emergent trauma procedures as well as vastly expanded access to our urgent care operating room.

Since 1981, UC Irvine Medical Center has been re-verified as a Level I trauma center by the American College of Surgeons 11 times. This designation underscores our faculty’s long-standing commitment to providing outstanding trauma care to the residents of Orange County.

In recent years, we have dramatically increased our trauma care research activities, expanding both our clinical research as well as its active bench research programs.

We now have exciting research collaborations underway with the UC Irvine Health Beckman Laser Institute to study traumatic shock and brain injury.

Our outstanding faculty members and I invite you to explore the division’s web pages. We are also always available to discuss any opportunities you wish to pursue in this exciting field of surgery.