Biography
Dr. West received her BA at Austin College in 1995 and graduated from McGovern Medical School in Houston in 1999. She completed a residency in general surgery at McGovern Medical School in 2006 and was a T32 trauma research fellow for 2 years, from 2001 to 2003, in the Trauma Research Program. She then went on to complete a Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at McGovern Medical School and Hermann Hospital on 2007. She joined the Department of surgery in August 2007, practicing Trauma, Emergency General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care in the Division of General Surgery. She was a KL2 CTSC research scholar from 2010 to 2015, studying the immune response to trauma. She became Trauma Medical Director in 2016, and then became Division Chief of the newly formed Division of Acute Care Surgery in April 2019.
Personal Statement
I am currently the Division Chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery, which is made up of Trauma, Emergency General Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care. I am passionate about providing trauma and emergency care to our patients. Before becoming trauma director in 2016, my research focused on the immune response to trauma. I currently serve as the State Chair to the Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons, where I serve on the Injury Prevention and Rural Trauma committees. I also have established several trauma education courses here for the education of trauma care providers in New Mexico. I currently serve as the project lead to establish the Improving Surgical Care and Recovery AHRQ Safety Program for our Emergency General Surgery service, which is a national quality program for EGS that will benchmark our EGS service to others across the country. I am a member of the Critical Care committee of the American Association for Surgery of Trauma.
Areas of Specialty
Trauma Surgery
Certifications
Emergency General Surgery
Achievements & Awards
Surgical Critical Care
Languages
- English
Courses Taught
Helped bring the Rural Trauma Team Development Course to New Mexico, a course that helps rural hospitals optimize trauma response and early transfer for definitive care. Teaches Advanced Trauma Life Support course to providers involved in carrying for trauma patients across the state. Established and serves as the course director for the ASSET course, Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma, a cadaver- based simulation course that teaches exposure of major vascular injuries.
Research and Scholarship
Interest in the immune response to trauma, and a KL2 grant recipient from the UNM CTSC from 2010 to 2015. Participating institution in the Trauma ICU Prevalence Project. Current participating institution in the EAST multi-center chest tube study.