Surgical critical care is a specialty of surgery and a primary component of general surgery related to the care of patients with acute, life-threatening or potentially life-threatening surgical conditions. Physicians specializing in surgical critical care have specialized expertise both non-operative techniques for trauma, as well as a thorough understanding of how our tissue responds to injury from trauma, burns, operation, infections, acute inflammation, or ischemia.

Our surgeons are skilled at managing how the body responds in trauma and the possible interaction with other diseases. Critically ill patients are cared for in a variety of urgent care settings, including pre-hospital situations, the emergency department, the operating room, and intensive care units.

USF Health surgical critical care services include:

• Post-operative care
• Sepsis (life-threating infection)
• Respiratory failure
• Trachestomy (forms direct airway through trachea)
• Ventilator management
• Bronchoscopy (endoscopic technique to view inside of airway)
• Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes (PEGs) (feeding tube)
• Multi-organ failure
• Coagulopathy (bleeding disorder, affecting way blood clots)