Education

1986    BS, Biology, Stanford University (Honors), Stanford, CA

1990    MD, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA

1998    MPH, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Training

1990-1991   Internship, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

1991-1996   Residency, General Surgery, George Washington University, Washington, DC

1996-1998  Fellowship, Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Susan Ingrid Brundage is a trauma and surgical critical care surgeon at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and Professor of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her clinical practice, her research, and her teaching all sit at the intersection of injury care, surgical education, and the design of trauma systems — work she has pursued across the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and West Africa for nearly three decades.

She trained at Stanford University (BS, Biology, with honors), the University of Iowa College of Medicine (MD), and the University of Washington (MPH), and completed her general surgery residency at George Washington University followed by a fellowship in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She holds active medical licenses in California, Maryland, and the United Kingdom, and is board-certified in both general surgery and surgical critical care. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

Her academic career has moved between major trauma centers on both sides of the Atlantic. After early faculty appointments at Baylor College of Medicine and Stanford University — where she directed the trauma quality improvement program and served as Associate Director of Trauma Services — she went on to lead the Acute Care Surgery service and Surgical Intensive Care Unit at NYU School of Medicine. In 2013 she joined Queen Mary University of London at the Blizard Institute's Centre for Trauma Sciences, where she became Director of the International Masters in Trauma Sciences and Professor and Chair of Trauma Education — a programme that drew students from more than 40 countries and earned QMUL's inaugural university-wide Excellence in Education Award in 2019. She joined the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland in 2020, and serves as Lead Advisor for the new Master of Science in Trauma Sciences launching at R Adams Cowley/UMSOM in autumn 2026 - the first US-based graduate degree in trauma.

Internationally, Dr. Brundage serves on the Executive Board of the European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) and as Chair of its Visceral Trauma Section. She is a member of the International Association for Trauma Surgery and Intensive Care (IATSIC), and has held leadership and committee roles across the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the Western Trauma Association, and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. In 2008–2009 she served as a Co-Editor of the World Health Organization's Guidelines for Trauma Quality Improvement Programmes, published jointly with IATSIC and the International Society of Surgery - work that remains a reference document for trauma system development in resource-limited settings.

Her research and scholarly output spans more than 85 peer-reviewed publications, multiple book chapters, and sustained invited speaking work across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Recurring threads in this body of work include the management of complex abdominal and thoracic injuries, resuscitation and transfusion strategy in haemorrhagic shock, trauma system design and outcomes, and the development of postgraduate trauma education internationally. She has held grant support from the NIH, the CDC, the AAST Research and Education Foundation, and the Medic One Foundation, and has served as an external doctoral examiner for programmes at the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the University of Bergen.

Dr. Brundage is an Advanced Trauma Life Support instructor with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where she teaches annually, and was a long-standing faculty member for the Association for Academic Surgery's international Fundamentals of Surgical Research and Career Development courses - including sustained teaching engagements with the West African College of Surgeons in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, and Senegal. Mentorship - of medical students, surgical residents, critical care fellows, and early-career international surgeons - has remained a central commitment throughout her career.

1. Designing A Trauma Traveling Fellowship: A Survey Of the European Society of Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) Membership. Wohlgemut JM, Gupta S, Cioffi SPB, Llaquet-Bayo H,  Wohlgemut HS, Hobby J, Shahin Mohseni S, Gaarder C, Bass GA, Brundage SI. Submitted for Publication 2026.
2. Cioffi SBP, Benuzzi L, Herbolzheimer M, Marrano E, Bellio G, Kluijfhout WP, Wijdicks FJ, Hättich A, Talving P, Bulger E, Tilsed J, Mariani D, Rey Valcarcel C, Mohseni S, Brundage SI, Yanez C, Verbruggen JPAM, Hildebrand F, Schipper IB, Gaarder C, Cimbanassi S, Kurihara H, Bass Identifying and addressing mentorship gaps in European trauma and emergency surgical training. European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery. 2024 August; 50, 2539–2549.
3. Hietbrink F, Mohseni S, Mariani D, Naess PA, Rey-Valcárcel C, Biloslavo A, Bass GA, Brundage SI, Alexandrino H, Peralta R, Leenen LPH, Gaarder T; Visceral Trauma Section of the European Society of Trauma, Emergency Surgery. What trauma patients need: the European dilemma. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg. 2024 Jun;50(3):627-634.
4. Malkin M, Nevo A, Brundage SI, Schreiber Effectiveness and safety of whole blood compared to balanced blood components in resuscitation of hemorrhaging trauma patients - A systematic review. Injury. 2021 Feb;52(2):182-188.
5. Schyma BM, Cole E, Wren SM, Brohi K, Brundage Delivering Trauma Mastery With An International Trauma Masters. Injury. 2019 Apr; 50 (4): 877-882