Download John Armstrong, MD, FACS, Florida`s State Surgeon General JOHN

John Armstrong, MD, FACS, Florida’s State Surgeon General
JOHN H. ARMSTRONG, MD, FACS, was appointed by Governor Scott as Surgeon General and
Secretary of Health for the State of Florida on April 27, 2012. Previously, he was Chief Medical
Officer of the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation; Surgical
Director of the USF Health American College of Surgeons Accredited Education Institute; and
Associate Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of South Florida (USF)
Morsani College of Medicine, in Tampa, FL. Before this, he was Trauma Medical Director at
Shands at the University of Florida Medical Center in Gainesville, FL, and a 2011 Exemplary
Teacher at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Dr. Armstrong is a graduate of Princeton University, the University Of Virginia School Of
Medicine, and the US Army Command and General Staff College. He performed his surgical
residency at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, HI, his trauma/surgical critical care
fellowship at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, and his Master Educators in
Medical Education fellowship at the University of Florida. He is a member of the Accreditation
Council for Graduate Medical Education Residency Review Committee for Surgery; co-Editor of
the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Disaster Management and Emergency Preparedness
course; and Editor-in-Chief of the American Medical Association (AMA) Advanced Disaster Life
Support,v.3.0, course.
Dr. Armstrong has been a national leader in health policy and advocacy for over 20 years. He is
Chair of the ACS delegation to the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates;
ACS Governor for Florida; and member of the ACS Health Policy and Advocacy Group. He is the
2011 ACS/American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Health Policy Scholar, and a former
trustee and executive committee member of the AMA.
Dr. Armstrong completed his career in the US Army Medical Corps at the rank of Colonel in
2005. His final assignment was Director, US Army Trauma Training Center (ATTC), in association
with the Ryder Trauma Center, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, FL. He led the development
and implementation of a two-week bona fide interdisciplinary team training program in trauma
casualty care for military medical units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. This incorporated
elements of the Med Teams program, the precursor to TeamSTEPPS. Under his leadership, the
ATTC was named the Department of Defense (DoD) Center of Excellence for Combat Casualty
Care Team Training (2004), and received the DoD Patient Safety Award for Team Training
(2005).
He also served as Chair of the Army (State) Committee on Trauma (COT) for the American
College of Surgeons and provided oversight to the largest geographic region and for the highest
number of annual ATLS courses in the program. He was the program director for the only
Surgical Critical Care Fellowship in the Department of Defense. He received the Army Surgeon
General's Physician Recognition Award (top Medical Corps Lieutenant Colonel) in 2003, Surgeon
General’s A-designator for General Surgery, and four teaching awards. He remains on faculty at
the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, where he was a
Distinguished Visiting Professor in August 2010 and the Silverstein Distinguished Lecturer in
2011. Dr. Armstrong served as the Senior Visiting Trauma Surgeon at Landstuhl, Germany, in
December 2011.
Dr. Armstrong is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He is recertified
by the American Board of Surgery with added qualifications in surgical critical care, and is a
fellow of the ACS and the American College of Chest Physicians. He is a member of the
American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the Eastern Association for the Surgery of
Trauma, the Florida Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the American
College of Physician Executives, and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.