Renowned surgeon Lottenberg to help UF, Shands build advanced trauma-care program
Trauma surgery expert Lawrence Lottenberg, M.D., a University of Florida graduate, has returned to his alma mater to direct efforts to establish an advanced trauma-care program at Shands at UF.
Lottenberg will serve as director of trauma surgery and associate professor of surgery with UF’s College of Medicine. He began Jan. 1. Working closely with administrators and departments at both the UF Health Science Center and Shands at UF, he will help upgrade and reorganize Shands emergency department facilities to meet state Department of Health requirements for Level 1 trauma centers. The highest trauma-care rating offered by the state, Level 1 certification could come in 2005.
Previously, Lottenberg helped secure Level 1 status for Memorial Healthcare System’s trauma center in Hollywood, Fla., where he served as director of trauma and critical care from 1992 through the end of 2003. Florida currently has six Level 1 trauma centers, in Hollywood, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.
Prior experience with trauma center certification made Lottenberg a natural fit for the position, said William Cance, M.D., a UF professor and chairman of surgery. Cance recruited Lottenberg to the position and calls him one of Florida’s best-known trauma surgeons.
“He will be a major factor in attracting other resources to support trauma care for the medical school and for (Shands),” Cance said. “The most impressive things about him are his energy and his focus and his knowledge of the trauma world.”
A Miami native, Lottenberg has devoted his career to serving Floridians. After graduating from UF in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science with honors in chemistry, he earned his M.D. from the University of Miami and completed surgical residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. From 1980 to 1992 he was a general surgeon and vascular surgeon in private practice in Hollywood and from 1992 to the present he has been a clinical associate professor with the University of Miami School of Medicine.
He is the chairman of the State Trauma System Plan Implementation Committee and co-author of the State Trauma System Plan. A fellow with the American College of Surgeons, he is immediate past chairman of the Florida Committee on Trauma, operated by the college’s Florida chapter.
“I’m very excited to be back in Gainesville,” Lottenberg said. “This actually has been a dream for me for a long time, to continue my career on an academic track. I’m also very excited to be able to come up there and be with my family.”
Lottenberg and his wife Mary have two children, Jennifer and Geoffrey, who both attend UF. His brother, hematologist-oncologist Richard Lottenberg, M.D., has been a member of the UF department of medicine faculty since 1982.