Board of Governors Representative

Col. Jennifer M. Gurney, MD, FACS, US Army

Dr. Gurney has focused her surgical career on improving combat casualty care. She currently serves as the Chief of the Joint Trauma System (JTS) and is a trauma surgeon at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. Prior to assuming the JTS Chair position, she was a surgeon at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center in Ft Sam Houston, Texas.

Dr. Gurney was the first chair of the Defense Committee on Trauma and chaired the Committee on Surgical Combat Casualty Care for 5 years. Dr. Gurney joined the Army while at Boston University Medical School on a Health Professions Service Program Scholarship and completed her surgical training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She completed a surgical critical care fellowship at Stanford Hospital in California and spent a year at the University of California, San Francisco, at San Francisco General Hospital, focusing on trauma care and trauma research.

Dr. Gurney has deployed eight times in support of military operations and has 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 is currently serving as the ESS Board of Governors Representative, was chair of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Military Committee from 2020–2024, and was the 2023–2024 President of Excelsior Surgical Society.