UC Davis Medical Center functions as California's only Level-I trauma center north of San Francisco. The Trauma Service of the Department of Surgery cares for the vast majority of trauma victims admitted to the medical center and coordinates the care of surgical subspecialists in addition to providing primary injury management. The service is primarily responsible for a wide range of injuries, including injuries to the neck, chest, abdomen, extremities and soft tissue, as well as injuries to the vasculature. The service also cares for patients presenting with surgical emergencies other than trauma.  The service manages patients in both the intensive care unit and on the ward and has extensive expertise in the field of surgical critical care; all of the faculty members on the service have a special certificate in surgical critical care from the American Board of Surgery.

Faculty members on the Trauma Service have active research interests in many areas, including but not limited to the following:

• Management of head injury, especially in the setting of multiple trauma
• Coagulation and fibrinolysis
• The immune response to trauma and other insults
• Medical ethics
• Hemodynamic monitoring in the intensive care unit
• Noninvasive detection of pulmonary embolism
• Assessment of diastolic function in trauma patients
• Nosocomial infections in the ICU
• Computerized support in the ICU
• Platelet function in critical illness
• Surgical nutrition, particularly in critical illness
• Trauma systems
• Injury prevention and brief interventions
• Microchimerism after transfusion in trauma patients
• The influence of blood transfusion on head injury outcomes
• The optimal timing of chest tube removal
• Patient safety indicators – development and refinement
• Resuscitation of uncontrolled hemorrhage