William Schwab, MD, FACS, FRCS (Commander, USN), will receive the Distinguished Lifetime Military Contribution Award at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2024 in San Francisco, California.
Established by the ACS Board of Regents in 2018, the award is selectively conferred based on merit. The award honors a physician for his or her distinguished contributions to the advancement of military surgery. Dr. Schwab is the fifth recipient of the award.
Dr. Schwab, an ACS Fellow since 1980, is an emeritus professor of surgery and the founding chief of the Division of Traumatology and Surgical Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. He also is the founding physician-in-chief of the PennSTAR Flight Program, a nonprofit critical care air and ground medical transportation serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York within a 100-mile radius of Penn Medicine in Philadelphia.
During Dr. Schwab’s long career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as division chief for 25 years, he was instrumental in advancing trauma care in the areas of clinical innovation, research, and the development of military-civilian partnerships in trauma care.
Contributions to Trauma Surgery and Research
On a clinical level, Dr. Schwab and his colleagues pioneered numerous aspects of damage control surgery, which aims to control bleeding through unconventional means and is now considered integral to surgical care for potentially fatal injuries. He also helped pilot several other techniques essential to the care of patients with life-threatening injuries.
Dr. Schwab’s research, while wide-ranging, has particularly focused on firearm injury prevention. His other research and policy interests have focused on the management of critical injury and trauma systems and center development. In the 1990s, Dr. Schwab catalyzed the surgical community to respond to the epidemic of firearm in injury in the U.S. At the University of Pennsylvania, he helped establish an interdisciplinary center to promote public policies to reduce gun violence. His publications include more than 250 articles and position papers, as well as several textbooks in the fields of trauma, ballistics, and damage control.
Contributions to Military-Civilian Partnerships in Trauma Care
Dr. Schwab mentored hundreds of postgraduate fellows in traumatology and critical care, advancing their clinical skills and preparing them for leadership. In part due to his guidance, training surgeons from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force has been a continuous part of the educational mission of the medical programs at the University of Pennsylvania since the early 1990s.
This connection to active service members has informed Dr. Schwab’s influential work on broad developments in trauma care. In a written statement, he stated, “During the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, 16 faculty and postgraduate fellows deployed as military combat surgeons. Upon return, they provided critical commentary that catalyzed” his work, particularly his Scudder Oration on Trauma at Clinical Congress in 2014. In his lecture, Dr. Schwab called for the enhancement of military-civilian partnerships.
He continued to advocate for the expansion of military trauma surgery through his participation in the ACS Committee on Trauma (which he has been involved with for more than 40 years). Dr. Schwab also contributed the 2006 and 2016 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) reports on trauma systems. The 2016 report pressed for the expansion of military-civilian partnerships, which permit military surgeons to fully practice in high-volume, high-acuity civilian centers as a means of achieving and maintaining the expert clinical proficiencies necessary for deployments in austere and hostile environments. Dr. Schwab’s contributions to the NASEM reports helped drive a successful push for the passage of the MISSION ZERO Act, a federal law that has funded nearly 30 military-civilian partnerships to date.
One such partnership is at his own institution. Dr. Schwab directed the development of the US Navy partnership with Penn Medicine and currently serves as the senior consultant to Penn Medicine’s Naval Strategic Health Alliance for Readiness and Performance. His participation in this program provides an opportunity for Dr. Schwab to continue to train surgeons associated with the U.S. Armed Forces.
Leadership and Research
Dr. Schwab has held multiple leadership positions in the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and other surgical organizations. He remains a visiting board member of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a past member of the Defense Health Board Trauma and Injury Subcommittee of the Defense Health Agency and the Trauma Systems Development Committee of the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation.
Dr. Schwab earned his medical degree at the State University of New York in Syracuse and completed an internship, surgical residency, and fellowship in gastroenterological endoscopy at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia. He was active in the U.S. Navy during his surgical training, and he remained an active-duty military surgeon from 1970 to 1980 and rose to the rank of Commander. Following this, he served in the Navy Reserves until 2006.
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About the American College of Surgeons
The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The ACS is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The ACS has approximately 90,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. “FACS” designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the ACS.
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