News & Events: Disaster Preparedness

The rapid emergence and spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is presenting challenges to medical clinicians not previously encountered in our lifetime. As the US Navy hospital ships are preparing to launch (USNS Comfort and Mercy) and governors are calling for military field hospitals to be used, there are several unanswered questions to be considered, such as who will staff these military installations, who will direct them, and what services will they provide. Many military medical clinicians are currently deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, as well as other areas of the [...]

 M. Margaret "Peggy" Knudson, M.D., FACS gave the Scudder Oration on Trauma at American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2019: "The Perfect Storm - The Importance of Military Civilian Partnerships." Honoring Charles Locke Scudder, MD, a founding member of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and a major contributor to the surgery of trauma, the annual Scudder Oration is one of only a handful of named lectures given annually at the ACS Clinical Congress. The Scudder Orator—who is chosen from a select few nominated for the award—delivers the address and is invited to publish [...]

In the wake of October's mass shooting at a Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, Vox News reached out to UCSF trauma surgeon M. Margaret "Peggy" Knudson, M.D., FACS for her thoughts on how doctors manage an influx of mass shooting victims, and the critical techniques for ensuring their patients' survival. Knudson, a professor in the UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General (ZSFG), is a nationally recognized expert on mass trauma events and war injuries. Currently Medical Director for the Military Health System (MHS) Strategic-ACS Partnership, Knudson served as a [...]

 M. Margaret "Peggy" Knudson, M.D., FACS was invited last year to give the 42nd American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Fitts Oration. The theme, "When peace breaks out", sounded a clarion call for training civilian and military surgeons alike to handle mass trauma cases arising from domestic terror events, natural or man-made disasters, and casualties of future wars. Dr. Knudson, an academic surgeon, has had a rich and multifacted career in trauma care, including service as a Senior Visiting Surgeon in the Iraq war theater, treating victims of the Asiana Airlines crash at San [...]

Rachael A. Callcut, M.D., M.S.P.H., a trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, recently participated in Fleet Week disaster training aboard the USS San Diego with other medical professionals.  Dr. Susan Ehrlich, Chief Executive Officer of Zuckerberg San Francisco General, described the exercise: This October, there was also some serious work and training going on involving ZSFG and the US Navy's 3rd fleet from the USS San Diego. The ship's team spent a day touring ZSFG with members of our trauma,anesthesiology and ED teams. Then our team spent two [...]

The American College of Surgeons recently announced that M. Margaret Knudson, MD, FACS, Professor of Surgery and trauma surgeon at the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, has joined the Division of Member Services of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) as Medical Director for the Military Health System (MHS) Strategic-ACS Partnership. The partnership was officially launched with the signing of a charter during Clinical Congress 2014. Dr. Knudson will oversee the partnership and assist with the development of education, systems-based practices, and research to maintain and [...]

UCSF News reports on the efforts of the trauma  team at San Francisco General Hospital that treated victims of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crashed while landing in San Francisco in July 2013. The team included UCSF Department of Surgery trauma surgeons M. Margaret Knudson, M.D. and Andre Campbell, M.D., and Rachael A. Callcut, M.D., M.S.P.H.. They arrived at SFGH within hours of the disaster: On the morning of July 6, M. Margaret Knudson, MD, chief of surgery at SFGH, worked with Campbell and others on site to begin assembling a team that would be ready to triage patients upon their [...]