Section of Trauma, Acute Care Surgery and Critical Care

The Section of Trauma, Acute Care Surgery and Critical Care provides modern, comprehensive care for patients who have been injured in an accident or have critical emergency surgical conditions. The Section also provides comprehensive Critical Care services in our state-of-the-art, 24-bed Surgery-Trauma Intensive Care Unit, caring for any critical surgical patient care needs. The University of Colorado Hospital is the only American Burn Association verified burn program in the state of Colorado and provides comprehensive care to burn victims in the new 19-bed burn center.

Our mission is to provide optimal care for the people in our community through high-quality patient care, with a focus on patients’ return to productivity. We also seek to improve the health of the community through injury prevention. We accomplish our mission by providing high-quality patient care with a collaborative medical and nursing framework. Our faculty includes surgeons with board certification in surgery and critical care and physician assistants who specialize in surgery. In addition to clinical care, our mission is to lead the country in medical education and research. Our faculty includes renowned research leaders in trauma, burn, and inflammation. The service provides education to medical students, physician assistant students, and surgical residents and fellows.

All of our surgeons hold faculty appointments at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and several serve in leadership positions of national medical societies.

We hope that our website provides you with useful information about the services we offer.

Michael Cripps, MD, FACS
Director of Trauma Acute Care Surgery and Critical Care