O’Keeffe named MCG chief of trauma, trauma medical director for AU Health

Dr. Terence O’Keeffe, professor in the University of Arizona Division of Trauma, Critical Care, Burn and Emergency Surgery, has been named chief of the Section of Trauma/Critical Care/Acute Care Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

O’Keeffe, who joins the MCG faculty April 1, also will serve as medical director of the adult trauma service for AU Health, a designated level 1 trauma center.

O’Keeffe joined the University of Arizona faculty in 2008 and served as interim trauma chief from 2016-18. He also served as chief of staff for Banner-University Medical Center Tucson from 2016-18.

MCG’s new trauma chief is on the editorial board of the Journal of Surgical Research and the advisory board of the European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery.

He has been twice honored with a presidential citation from the Society of Critical Care Medicine and becomes chair of the society’s Surgery Section this year. He has served as co-chair of the society’s Education Committee and as a member of its Postgraduate and Fellowship Education Committee.  O’Keeffe served for two years on the Acute Care Surgery Committee of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and is currently on the association’s Injury Prevention Committee. He was named an honorary member of the Brazilian Trauma Society in 2015.

He has written or coauthored 21 chapters on an array of surgical topics including the use of thoracic ultrasonography in the critically ill for the textbook “Ultrasonography in the ICU,” and the impaired ability for blood to clot, called coagulopathy, in the critically ill for the textbook “Current Surgical Therapy” 13th  Edition, coming out this year. O’Keeffe has authored or coauthored more than 170 journal articles. His most recent research includes studies to improve patient care following massive transfusion as well as studies on traumatic brain injury.

He earned his bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, completed postgraduate medical training at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Salisbury District Hospital in England and Western Infirmary in Glasgow. O’Keeffe completed a trauma/critical care fellowship at Ryder Trauma Center of Miami’s Jackson Health System while also completing a master’s in public health at the University of Miami.

He speaks four languages.