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Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

Become a Member
Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

Become a Member
ACS
In-person Event

2026 ATLS Global Symposium High-Level Schedule

Thursday, March 12, 2025

 

7:00-8:15 am

Regions 1-8 Breakfast Committee Meetings

8:30-10:30 am

Resident and Fellow Trauma Paper Competition

12:00-1:30 pm

Lunch on Your Own

3:30-6:00 pm

Resident and Fellow Trauma Paper Competition

6:00-7:00 pm

Networking Reception

Friday, March 13, 2026

 

7:00-8:15 am

COT Regions 9-17 Committee Breakfast Meetings

8:15-9:15 am

Education Pillar Meeting

9:45-11:00 am

Special Session: Beyond the Battlefield: War Wound Care for the General Surgeon

 

General surgeons, whether practicing in civilian, military, or humanitarian contexts, may be faced with caring for patients suffering from devastating war-related injuries. This panel will present an integrated perspective—technical, systemic, and psychosocial—on caring for such patients in resource-limited and high-stress environments.

 

Panelists will share insights into the operative management of high-velocity ballistic injuries, blast trauma, and burns; system design for resilient trauma care during mass casualty and prolonged austere care; and the psychological dimensions of caring for patients with catastrophic injuries. A pediatric perspective will ensure attention to the most vulnerable patients.


The session will also emphasize transferable lessons: how innovations from conflict zones can inform domestic readiness for mass casualty incidents, and how strategies for system and team resilience apply broadly across the trauma community.

10:00 am-12:00 pm

ATLS Coordinator Best Practices

1:00-2:30 pm

Networking Lunch

1:00-2:30 pm

COT Region Chiefs (by invitation only)

2:00-3:15 pm

ATLS Coordinator Townhall Meetings for New and Experienced Coordinators

2:00-3:15 pm

ATLS Instructor Course Highlights/Surgical Education Topics

2:30-5:00 pm

International Panel Sessions

 

 

 

Global Integration of Teletrauma Capability for the Care of the Injured Patient
Telehealth has been increasingly used worldwide to improve provider-to-provider communication, extend expertise, and deliver timely care to patients in medically underserved and geographically remote areas. In trauma care, telehealth can potentially strengthen local capacity, improve access, and facilitate rapid consultation when distance and resources pose significant barriers. In this session, leaders from global teletrauma initiatives will share their experiences, challenges, and solutions in using telehealth to support trauma care in rural and remote environments. This discussion will allow participants to learn from successful international models, understand barriers and facilitators across diverse settings, and consider how lessons from diverse environments may inform the design and implementation of sustainable teletrauma programs in their own practice.

Blood Deserts: Global Challenges and Solutions in Trauma Care Access
This panel addresses the critical challenge of "blood deserts"—geographic regions with limited or delayed access to blood products, significantly impacting trauma patient outcomes. The session will explore the scope of this problem globally and in the United States, examine innovative solutions from various perspectives, and provide actionable strategies for trauma care providers.

A Modern Approach to Clinical Decision Support Across Diverse Resource Practice Settings
Everyday patients across resource settings receive care that research has shown to be inferior to other treatment plans, or even harmful. Clinicians exist in a world where information is growing at a more rapid pace than ever, but where the information they need, when they need it, is either unavailable, or only available behind a paywall or a prohibitively tedious user experience. Further, clinical guidance, in the form of guidelines, algorithms, protocols and other tools to support clinical decisions, is often developed by, and for, the highest resource settings, and therefore irrelevant in rural, combat, austere, or in most global clinical practice settings. A panel of global experts in clinical guidance content generation, knowledge dissemination, artificial intelligence for evidence synthesis and access, and resource-adaptive clinical decision support will describe the current scenario, and with audience active engagement, collectively conceive of a way forward that benefits all of us our patients.

3:30-4:30 pm

Education Program Chairs Highlights

6:30-7:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Reception (Ticketed Event)

7:00-9:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Banquet (Ticketed Event)

9:00-10:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Dessert Reception (Ticketed Event)

Saturday, March 14, 2026

 

7:00-8:30 am

 Breakfast

7:30-8:30 am

 ACS Stop the Bleed Course 

8:45-9:45 am

Opening Session with Dr. Jeffrey Kerby, Immediate Past COT Chair,  and Presentation of 2026 Poster Winners

9:45-10:15 am

Launch of Resource-Variable Trauma Team 
Development Course (RTTDC) 5th Edition Update

10:30-11:15 am &


11:30 am-12:15 pm


 

 

 

Concurrent Breakout Sessions 

 ACS Trauma Education Session

Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN) Course – Highlights and Q&A

 Trauma Education Research Projects

 ACS Stop the Bleed and ATLS

12:15-1:45 pm

 Lunch and Awards 

2:00-3:00 pm

ATLS Best Practices with Video Demonstrations including Triage and Resource Management, and Communications Skills Stations

3:00-4:00 pm

Region Chief Panel 

4:00-5:00 pm

Poster Session and Reception

Sunday, March 15, 2026

 

7:00-7:30 am

 Continental Breakfast

7:30-8:00 am

 ATLS Stories for 50th Anniversary 

8:00-9:00 am

Keynote Speaker Address: Garry Taylor

 

Trauma Patient Survivor 

9:15-10:45 am

ATLS 11 Best Practices Panel

11:00 am-12:30 pm

Everything Trauma Education Panel

Thursday, March 12, 2025

 

7:00-8:15 am

Regions 1-8 Breakfast Committee Meetings

8:30-10:30 am

Resident and Fellow Trauma Paper Competition

12:00-1:30 pm

Lunch on Your Own

3:30-6:00 pm

Resident and Fellow Trauma Paper Competition

6:00-7:00 pm

Networking Reception

Friday, March 13, 2026

 

7:00-8:15 am

COT Regions 9-17 Committee Breakfast Meetings

8:15-9:15 am

Education Pillar Meeting

9:45-11:00 am

Special Session: Beyond the Battlefield: War Wound Care for the General Surgeon

 

General surgeons, whether practicing in civilian, military, or humanitarian contexts, may be faced with caring for patients suffering from devastating war-related injuries. This panel will present an integrated perspective—technical, systemic, and psychosocial—on caring for such patients in resource-limited and high-stress environments.

 

Panelists will share insights into the operative management of high-velocity ballistic injuries, blast trauma, and burns; system design for resilient trauma care during mass casualty and prolonged austere care; and the psychological dimensions of caring for patients with catastrophic injuries. A pediatric perspective will ensure attention to the most vulnerable patients.


The session will also emphasize transferable lessons: how innovations from conflict zones can inform domestic readiness for mass casualty incidents, and how strategies for system and team resilience apply broadly across the trauma community.

10:00 am-12:00 pm

ATLS Coordinator Best Practices

1:00-2:30 pm

Networking Lunch

1:00-2:30 pm

COT Region Chiefs (by invitation only)

2:00-3:15 pm

ATLS Coordinator Townhall Meetings for New and Experienced Coordinators

2:00-3:15 pm

ATLS Instructor Course Highlights/Surgical Education Topics

2:30-5:00 pm

International Panel Sessions

 

 

 

Global Integration of Teletrauma Capability for the Care of the Injured Patient
Telehealth has been increasingly used worldwide to improve provider-to-provider communication, extend expertise, and deliver timely care to patients in medically underserved and geographically remote areas. In trauma care, telehealth can potentially strengthen local capacity, improve access, and facilitate rapid consultation when distance and resources pose significant barriers. In this session, leaders from global teletrauma initiatives will share their experiences, challenges, and solutions in using telehealth to support trauma care in rural and remote environments. This discussion will allow participants to learn from successful international models, understand barriers and facilitators across diverse settings, and consider how lessons from diverse environments may inform the design and implementation of sustainable teletrauma programs in their own practice.

Blood Deserts: Global Challenges and Solutions in Trauma Care Access
This panel addresses the critical challenge of "blood deserts"—geographic regions with limited or delayed access to blood products, significantly impacting trauma patient outcomes. The session will explore the scope of this problem globally and in the United States, examine innovative solutions from various perspectives, and provide actionable strategies for trauma care providers.

A Modern Approach to Clinical Decision Support Across Diverse Resource Practice Settings
Everyday patients across resource settings receive care that research has shown to be inferior to other treatment plans, or even harmful. Clinicians exist in a world where information is growing at a more rapid pace than ever, but where the information they need, when they need it, is either unavailable, or only available behind a paywall or a prohibitively tedious user experience. Further, clinical guidance, in the form of guidelines, algorithms, protocols and other tools to support clinical decisions, is often developed by, and for, the highest resource settings, and therefore irrelevant in rural, combat, austere, or in most global clinical practice settings. A panel of global experts in clinical guidance content generation, knowledge dissemination, artificial intelligence for evidence synthesis and access, and resource-adaptive clinical decision support will describe the current scenario, and with audience active engagement, collectively conceive of a way forward that benefits all of us our patients.

3:30-4:30 pm

Education Program Chairs Highlights

6:30-7:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Reception (Ticketed Event)

7:00-9:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Banquet (Ticketed Event)

9:00-10:00 pm

Committee on Trauma Dessert Reception (Ticketed Event)

Saturday, March 14, 2026

 

7:00-8:30 am

 Breakfast

7:30-8:30 am

 ACS Stop the Bleed Course 

8:45-9:45 am

Opening Session with Dr. Jeffrey Kerby, Immediate Past COT Chair,  and Presentation of 2026 Poster Winners

9:45-10:15 am

Launch of Resource-Variable Trauma Team 
Development Course (RTTDC) 5th Edition Update

10:30-11:15 am &


11:30 am-12:15 pm


 

 

 

Concurrent Breakout Sessions 

 ACS Trauma Education Session

Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN) Course – Highlights and Q&A

 Trauma Education Research Projects

 ACS Stop the Bleed and ATLS

12:15-1:45 pm

 Lunch and Awards 

2:00-3:00 pm

ATLS Best Practices with Video Demonstrations including Triage and Resource Management, and Communications Skills Stations

3:00-4:00 pm

Region Chief Panel 

4:00-5:00 pm

Poster Session and Reception

Sunday, March 15, 2026

 

7:00-7:30 am

 Continental Breakfast

7:30-8:00 am

 ATLS Stories for 50th Anniversary 

8:00-9:00 am

Keynote Speaker Address: Garry Taylor

 

Trauma Patient Survivor 

9:15-10:45 am

ATLS 11 Best Practices Panel

11:00 am-12:30 pm

Everything Trauma Education Panel

The schedule is subject to change. All times listed in Central Standard Time.