Charles Mabry, MD, FACS, surgeon-in-chief of Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, will receive the ACS’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, at Convocation during Clinical Congress 2026 in Washington, DC.
Established in 1957 by the ACS Board of Regents, the award recognizes exceptional and continuous service by an ACS Fellow, as well as a career marked by an outstanding emphasis on patient care and commitment to the ideals of surgical practice.
“I’m very honored,” Dr. Mabry said. “I never thought I’d get such a prestigious award.”
Transforming Trauma Care
Dr. Mabry’s engagement with the ACS began during his residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock, when he first encountered Advanced Trauma Life Support® (ATLS®). The program, now in its 11th edition and approaching its 50th anniversary, was brand new at the time.
As he completed his residency and began practicing surgery, Dr. Mabry was asked to develop the first trauma service at UAMS Medical Center. As part of that effort, he became an ATLS instructor, serving for 12 years and receiving the 1986 ACS Young Surgeon Award in recognition of his work.
He has remained involved in trauma care and education ever since. As he climbed the career ladder to become chief of surgery at Jefferson Regional Medical Center, he also engaged with the ACS through several trauma care programs. These roles included serving as the Arkansas state chair of the ACS Committee on Trauma and course director for the Arkansas Trauma Evaluation and Management (TEAM)™ Course, a collaboration between the Arkansas Trauma Society and Arkansas ACS Chapter.
Outside the ACS, he has served as medical director of the Arkansas Trauma Society and chair of the Governor’s Trauma Advisory Council within the Arkansas Trauma System. He remains involved in training trauma teams.
“I develop trauma education for the state as part of the Arkansas trauma system and the Arkansas Chapter of the ACS, including different courses to teach surgeons and emergency physicians, nurses, and paramedics,” he said.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Mabry has seen tremendous improvement in trauma care. “How we handle trauma patients now is really, truly, completely different than in the 1970s. It’s been very interesting and very exciting to me to see the development of trauma over the years and how we’ve helped in managing trauma.”
He credits the ACS with helping make that progress possible: “One of the things that has been very gratifying to me is to take the lessons learned at the national level and the international level and then incorporate that into our education here in Arkansas.”
Dr. Mabry cited a 2024 study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons to further explain the impact. “One of the papers that I participated in was a study of the preventable mortality rate over time. Before the trauma system, around 30% of the trauma deaths were judged to be preventable or possibly preventable. Now we’re down to around 1% or 2% preventable, and around 5% possibly preventable. So, it’s really dropped over time,” he said.
Defending Surgeon Compensation, and Much More
Dr. Mabry also has contributed to the ACS General Surgery Coding and Reimbursement Committee (GSCRC) for nearly 35 years. “Since 1992, I’ve been involved in trying to help the ACS get the appropriate value for the work we do, and that’s been very gratifying,” he said.
The work focuses on ensuring that Current Procedural Terminology codes and relative value units for surgical procedures are valued appropriately. Dr. Mabry is proud to be part of the team of Fellows who have represented general surgeons, who do not have a specialty-specific society outside the ACS, on the American Medical Association/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee.
“The GSCRC does a lot of defensive work to prevent incorrect valuation of codes,” he explained. “We’ve been very successful at preventing damage to the reimbursement for general surgeons over many years.”
His contributions to the ACS have encompassed many roles beyond trauma and compensation issues. These include serving as course director for the ACS Basic and Advanced Coding Seminar, President of the ACS Arkansas Chapter, a member of the ACS Advisory Councils on General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, and Health Policy, and chair of the ACS Health Policy Advisory Committee. Dr. Mabry also held positions on the ACS Board of Regents from 2003 to 2011 and as 2016–2017 ACS First Vice-President.
For more than 45 years, Dr. Mabry has served the ACS in numerous leadership roles.
Advice to Younger Surgeons
Dr. Mabry said his enduring involvement with the ACS reflects the benefits he has gained through his participation.
“In looking back over my career, I’ve gained so much from working in the College and working with the Regents, Governors, and Executive Directors, and all the directors in the College. It’s just unbelievable how much I’ve learned from them. They are all very good mentors, and they want to teach you,” he said.
Asked what advice he would offer younger surgeons, he returned to this idea. “I think the simplest and hopefully most memorable thing to say to them is get involved with the College,” he said. “Whatever the College does, its goal is to help the surgical patient, and so you help the surgical patient, and you also help your fellow surgeons.”
Enduring Commitment
Through his service, Dr. Mabry exemplifies the ACS motto “To Heal All with Skill and Trust” and the values the Distinguished Service Award recognizes.
His career also reflects both steadfast dedication and joy in his work. As Dr. Mabry, a lifelong Arkansan raised in Pine Bluff, said, “When I was in high school, I was an orderly in our hospital here. Now I’m back at the same hospital as a surgeon and the chief of surgery.”
Although he didn’t intend to come back to his hometown, he is happy to be there, serving his community and the wider world. “You can’t beat the job I’ve got.”
