Glen H. Tinkoff, M.D., FACS, honored with NSC Surgeons’ Award for Service to Safety

Glen H. Tinkoff, M.D., FACS, Christiana Care associate vice-chair, surgery, for Emergency Surgical Services, received the National Safety Council 2014 Surgeons’ Award for Service to Safety at the annual ACS Committee on Trauma Dinner in San Francisco.

The Surgeons’ Award for Service to Safety is sponsored by the National Safety Council and nominated by the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma to recognize outstanding service to safety by surgeons or surgical organizations.

The award citation recognized Dr. Tinkoff’s “commitment to the advancement of care of injured patients through leadership in the organization of a regional trauma care system and outstanding trauma research.”

Objectives of the award program are to:

• Strengthen the work of surgeons or surgical organizations by identifying and enhancing their emphasis on the interlocking problems of the prevention and restoration of accidental injuries.
• Strengthen the work of safety councils through the increased participation of surgeons in organized accident prevention activities.
• Continue progress in the development of criteria to ascertain the effectiveness of activities conducted for the prevention of accidents.

Dr. Tinkoff recently completed 18 years’ tenure on the ACS Committee on Trauma. During that time, he served as Delaware state COT chair, mid-Atlantic region chief, member of the executive committee, and as chair of the trauma performance improvement and patient safety subcommittee. He also currently chairs the Trauma Prevention Coalition, which is sponsored by the AAST and represents the major professional trauma organizations through promoting collaborative efforts and developing effective strategies in injury and violence prevention.

Dr. Tinkoff received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati and completed general surgery residency at Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia, as well as fellowships in surgical critical care at State University of New York at Stony Brook and trauma research at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa.

He was recruited to the Medical Center of Delaware (now Christiana Care Health System) in 1992 as the medical director of the trauma program, a position in which he served until 2008. He remains clinically active in trauma care and serves the Delaware Division of Public Health as the medical adviser to the state trauma system.

Dr. Tinkoff has an appointment as a clinical professor of surgery at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications, including two important studies that he co-authored confirming the dramatic positive impact of Delaware’s state trauma system.