Trauma kills fast. Bleeding out, a severe brain injury, or uncontrolled shock can end a life in minutes. In those moments, what a medical team knows and how quickly they act makes all the difference.
I have spent my career asking a simple question: how do we give trauma patients a better chance of surviving?
The answer keeps leading me back to the same three things. Better science. Better training. Better systems.
The Problem with “Good Enough”
Every year in the United States, more than 200,000 people die from trauma-related injuries. It is the leading cause of death for Americans under 45. Many of those deaths are preventable.
That phrase gets used a lot in trauma care. “Preventable death.” It sounds clinical. But behind every statistic is a person, a family, and a community that lost someone too soon.
Good enough is not good enough. Not when the science tells us we can do better.
In combat medicine, this truth becomes even sharper. On deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, I saw firsthand how fast things can change. A warfighter injured in a remote location cannot wait. There is no nearby hospital, no blood bank down the hall, and no time for long protocols. Every decision has to be the right one, made quickly.
That pressure shaped how I think about trauma care for everyone, not just soldiers.
Research That Moves from Battlefield to Bedside
One of the most important shifts in trauma science over the past two decades has been in how we treat hemorrhagic shock. This is what happens when someone loses so much blood that their organs begin to fail. It kills quickly. Traditional resuscitation methods often relied heavily on intravenous fluids, but research has shown that this approach can actually make bleeding worse.
My team and I have worked on a different approach: using blood products early and aggressively. Giving patients plasma and red blood cells together, in balanced ratios, helps restore not just volume but also the body’s ability to clot. This keeps bleeding from compounding itself.
We have also focused on prehospital care, the treatment that happens before a patient ever reaches a hospital. This is where many lives are lost. If we can stabilize someone in the field, in the ambulance, or in a helicopter, we buy time. That time saves lives.
The Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health have supported much of this work. You can explore the depth of this research through my published scientific work, which now spans more than 600 peer-reviewed papers.
Training the Next Generation
Science without skilled people to apply it changes nothing.
That is why teaching has always been central to what I do. Whether in a classroom, an operating room, or a simulation lab, I have found that training sticks when it is grounded in real cases and honest feedback.
Today, I serve as the National Director of the Definitive Surgical Trauma Care Course. This program trains surgeons from around the world in advanced trauma techniques. It sets a standard, and that standard saves lives in Oregon, in Texas, in Thailand, and in conflict zones on the other side of the planet.
At Oregon Health & Science University, I led the Donald D. Trunkey Center for Civilian and Combat Casualty Care. That center brought together military and civilian trauma researchers to solve shared problems. The science developed for soldiers applies directly to car accident victims, shooting survivors, and anyone else who shows up in an emergency department with life-threatening injuries.
Why Local Investment in Trauma Matters
Portland and the broader Pacific Northwest region benefit directly from advances in trauma science. Oregon Health & Science University is a Level I trauma center, meaning it handles the most complex and severe injuries. The work done there influences protocols used across Oregon and neighboring states.
Trauma does not distribute itself evenly. Rural communities often face longer transport times and fewer resources. Research into prehospital care, portable blood products, and remote hemorrhage control directly addresses the gap between urban and rural trauma outcomes.
Every improvement in training, technology, or protocol that comes out of research programs like those I have been part of eventually reaches community hospitals, fire departments, and emergency responders across the region.
A Career Built on Service
I did not choose surgery and military service because they were easy paths. I chose them because they matter.
Airborne School, combat deployments, residency training, and 600 published papers later, the mission has stayed the same. Give trauma patients the best possible chance of survival.
That mission connects the operating room to the battlefield to the research lab. It connects a surgeon in Portland to a medic in a forward operating base to an emergency physician in rural Oregon.
You can learn more about the full arc of this work at martinschreiber.co, including a closer look at the clinical and research portfolio that spans decades of innovation in trauma surgery.
What Comes Next
The science of trauma care keeps moving forward. Advances in blood product development, artificial intelligence in triage, and remote damage control surgery are all areas with real promise. The goal is always the same: close the gap between injury and survival.
Trauma will always be part of human life. Accidents happen. Conflict exists. The body is fragile in ways we sometimes forget until it matters most.
What we can control is how prepared we are. How well trained our surgeons and medics are. How good is the science behind our decisions? And how committed we are to sharing what we learn with everyone who needs it.
That is the work. And there is still a lot of it left to do.
Martin A. Schreiber, MD, is a trauma surgeon, Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and researcher based in Portland, Oregon. His work focuses on improving survival after traumatic brain injury and hemorrhagic shock through research, education, and military medicine.