The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Board of Regents confirmed Jeffrey D. Kerby, MD, PhD, FACS, as the next Chair of the ACS Committee on Trauma (COT). Dr. Kerby serves as the Brigham Family Endowed Professor and director of the division of trauma and acute care surgery for the department of surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, as well as the state trauma consultant to the Alabama Department of Public Health.
A decorated U.S. Air Force veteran, Dr. Kerby was deployed as an active-duty combat trauma surgeon in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (2002). He has served as a trauma and acute care surgeon at UAB since 2003 and was chief of general surgery at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (2009–2014). Dr. Kerby has established a military-civilian partnership between the UAB and U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command to support the ongoing training of Special Operations Surgical and Critical Care teams. This program hosts nearly 30 active-duty Air Force personnel and has also established trauma skills sustainment programs for Air Force Pararescue Jumpers.
Dr. Kerby’s clinical expertise is in trauma, critical care, and emergency general surgery. He serves on the editorial board of Prehospital Emergency Care and the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. His research interests focus on interventional trials and outcomes in the prehospital emergency care setting. He is part of a collaborative group of investigators that has published a large body of research in the medical literature on this topic. For 10 years (2005–2015), he was principal investigator of the Alabama Resuscitation Center of the Resuscitation Outcomes Center network, a multi-center trials network funded by the National Institutes of Health that focused on prehospital interventional trials in trauma and cardiac arrest.
Role in the COT
Dr. Kerby has served on the ACS COT since 2016 as the Membership Committee Chair and on the Executive Committee for the last four years. In his role as Membership Committee Chair, he has shepherded the Mentoring for Excellence in Trauma Surgery program; supported the ACS COT diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; renewed the rigor of the search and selection process for the Scudder Orator; increased the engagement of subspecialty surgeons; and captured the history of the ACS COT for the centennial celebration planned for 2022. He also has served on the COT Research Committee, the Trauma System Evaluation and Planning Committee, and the Emergency Medical Services Committee.
Dr. Kerby assumes the leadership of the ACS COT in March 2022, becoming the 21st Chair of the COT during its 100th year as an ACS committee. Dr. Kerby succeeds Eileen M. Bulger, MD, FACS, Seattle, WA.
“We look forward to Dr. Kerby’s visionary leadership as the COT enters this historic centennial year working to prevent injuries and ensure the optimal care of the injured patient. He is the perfect person to lead the COT into its next century of transforming care and reducing injuries across the globe,” Dr. Bulger said.
