Chief, Joint Trauma System, DHA

COL Gurney has worked with JTS since 2012 in one capacity or another. She has dedicated her career to improving care of the combat casualty, making her an ideal candidate to lead JTS.

COL Gurney helped run the world-renowned Burn Care Unit as the Deputy Director, where she is the go-to expert for Burn Care and a teacher to residents. She provides strategic guidance to the JTS trauma care delivery team as Chief of Trauma Systems Development. She chaired the JTS Defense Committees of Trauma, leading over 150 subject matter experts in prehospital, surgical, and en route care in a multidisciplinary and tri-service collaboration to guide DoD trauma care.

COL Gurney has led efforts to better surgical practices and procedures across the globe, from working with Honduran surgeons to share knowledge to reviewing combat mortalities in South CCMD to assessing the African CCMD trauma system through surveys of Role 1 and Role 2 care and onsite visits. As the Army State representative to the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, COL Gurney supported the development of the military-civilian partnership guide. She helped develop the Combat Readiness metrics for deploying surgeons. Referred to the Joint Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Project, COL Gurney has been a leader in establishing the detailed expectations for expeditionary surgery. She was first to evaluate the epidemiology and trends of injury among U.S. female service members in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

COL Gurney joined the U.S. Army while at Boston University Medical School. She was Chief of General Surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany from 2011 to 2013 and the William Beaumont Army Medical Center from 2007-2009. She deployed seven times, serving as the Theater Trauma Director in Operation Inherent Resolve in her last deployment to Iraq. Her tenure resulted in the Central Command's most comprehensive analysis of whole blood utilization in combat trauma and directly led to the adoption of whole blood use in the prehospital setting in several civilian regional trauma systems.

COL Gurney received a Legion of Merit with a 'C' (combat) device, three Bronze Star Medals, a Combat Action Badge, and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for wartime service. She has had the opportunity to work at every level of care after Role 1 in the deployed battlefield trauma system.