Executive Officers

The following surgeons are the elected officers of the new Excelsior Surgical Society:

President

Captain Matthew Tadlock, MD, FACS, USN

Captain Tadlock is a Trauma/Critical Care Surgeon currently assigned to 1st Medical Battalion-Detachment San Diego,1st Marine Logistics Group, where he is an attending surgeon at NMRTC-San Diego. He is an associate professor of surgery through the Uniformed Services University and associate clinical professor of surgery (non-salaried) at University of California San Diego. He has 5 deployments providing Health Service Support to USN, USMC, and NATO units in the Indo-Pacific, Central and Western Asia, on both land and sea; including two CVN's, one DDG, and as the Chief of Trauma at the Kandahar NATO Role 3. He has also deployed in support of military Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief missions. He has held numerous leadership roles, most recently as the Navy Trauma Specialty Leader. He currently serves as the chair of the BUMED Trauma Advisory Board. Captain Tadlock has been a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons since 2015 and a member of the Excelsior Society since 2016.

Vice President (President-Elect)

Matthew J. (Matt) Bradley, MD, FACS

CAPT Bradley received his undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University, his Master's in Physiology and Doctor of Medicine from the Temple University School of Medicine, and completed his general surgery residency at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC). Following residency, he was assigned as the ship’s surgeon on board the George HW Bush, CVN 77 during its maiden deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He completed trauma and surgical critical care fellowship training at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, MD. He was then transferred to the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, MD serving as the department head for the regenerative medicine department focusing on the systemic inflammatory response following traumatic injury. During this tour he was selected as associate program director for the Walter Reed general surgery residency, and completed a deployment as chief of trauma at the NATO Role III Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan and multiple missions aboard USNS Comfort. Dr. Bradley served as the program director of the general surgery residency at WRNMMC for four years and he holds the academic rank of professor in the department of surgery at the Uniformed Services University (USU). He is currently the Norman M. Rich Professor and Chair of Surgery at USU/WRNMMC.

CAPT Bradley is dual board-certified in general surgery and surgical critical care. He is the principal or associate investigator on several grants with multimillion-dollar annual budgets, and published over 110 peer-reviewed manuscripts, invited articles, and book chapters. He is a reviewer for several prominent journals and sits on the editorial board for the Journal of Surgical Research and Current Trauma Reports. Bradley is an instructor for Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Fundamentals of Critical Care Support (FCCS), Advanced Trauma Operative Management (ATOM), and Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma (ASSET) and ASSET+ courses. In addition to his numerous academic awards, CAPT Bradley’s military awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal (three awards), Joint Service Achievement Medal (two awards), Navy Achievement Medal, and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal. He is also a qualified surface warfare medical department officer.

Immediate Past-President

Colonel Jennifer Gurney, MD, FACS, MC, USA

Colonel Jennifer Gurney is the Chief of the Joint Trauma System and has worked with JTS since 2012. Since joining active-duty Army, COL Gurney has served at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, as the Chief of General Surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, and has deployed seven times, serving as the Theater Trauma Director in her last deployment to Iraq. Gurney has led efforts to better surgical practices and procedures across the globe and has supported a number of projects such as the development of a military-civilian partnership guide, Combat Readiness metrics for deploying surgeons, and detailed expectations for expeditionary surgery.

Secretary

Major Maggie Gallagher, MD, FACS, USA

Dr. Gallagher is originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin. After completing her undergraduate degree at the United States Military Academy at West Point, she received her medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD. She completed her general surgery residency at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, HI. She then completed her pediatric surgery fellowship at the Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN. She is board certified in general and pediatric surgery and is currently at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Treasurer

Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Sabino, MD, FACS

LTC Sabino is a plastic surgeon and surgical services lead for the National Capital Region. She is also the Deputy Consultant for Plastic Surgery to the Surgeon General of the Army. LTC Sabino graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics. She attended medical school at Yale School of Medicine. She went on to complete general surgery training at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center followed by plastic surgery training at Johns Hopkins. LTC Sabino practices general plastic surgery at WRNNMC with a focus on breast reconstruction.

Councilperson at Large, US Army

Major Brian Gamble, MD, FACS, USA

Major Gamble is a graduate of Penn State and the Medical University of South Carolina. He completed his general surgery residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. He then completed a trauma/critical care fellowship at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX. He is currently stationed at Walter Reed, where he is an associate program director for the general surgery residency program.

Councilperson at Large, US Navy

Commander Diego Vicente, MD, FACS, USN

CDR Diego Vicente is a Surgical Oncologist at Naval Medical Center San Diego and Associate Professor of Surgery at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.  He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the College of William and Mary, and Medical Degree from Georgetown University.  He completed his General Surgery Residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and his Surgical Oncology Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

CDR Vicente has over 25 years of research experience and over 40 peer reviewed publications in varied fields including: Biomechanics 1998-2002, Microbiology 2002-2003, Photochemistry 2002-2005, Refractive Surgery 2006-2008, Surgical Outcomes 2009-present, Regenerative Medicine 2011-present, Melanoma Immunotherapy 2016, Pancreatic Cancer Immunotherapy 2018-present, Trauma and Critical Care 2018-present, Nucleic Acid Therapy 2018-present, Biobank 2018-present, Applied Proteogenomics OrganizationaL Learning and Outcomes (APOLLO) 2018-present, PROJECT FOR MILITARY EXPOSURES AND TOXIN HISTORY EVALUATION IN US SERVICE MEMBERS (PROMETHEUS) 2022-present.  The highest impact projects include the effect of the gut microbiome on melanoma immunotherapy (Gopalakrishnan V, Science. 2017) and the discovery of early viral reactivation in trauma patients (Vicente D, Crit Care Med. 2021).  Most recently, CDR Vicente has collaborated with academic and industry partners to develop a novel rodent model for pressurized delivery of immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer (Capacio, Surgery. 2023) and is actively developing a shipboard protocol for evaluating environmental exposure associated with cancer risk (PROMETHEUS 31A).

CDR Vicente has served as the Ship Surgeon for the USS Harry S. Truman and Officer in Charge for the Emergency Resuscitative Surgical Systems team on the USS Hershel "Woody" Williams.  For 1^st Med Bn he has served as a subject matter expert for Role 2 expeditionary teams and for BUMED he has served as a subject matter expert on the OPNAV Expeditionary Medical Unit Authorized Medical Allowance List as well as Fleet Surgical Sub-Community.  On a national level, CDR Vicente serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Surgical Research and has been a Chair of the Excelsior Surgical Society’s Research Committee and a Chair of the Association for Academic Surgery’s Military Committee.  For the VA and DoD he has served on the DHA Clinical Oncology community and VA Surgical Informatics committee to update MHS Genesis for the DHA Military Treatment Facility Committee on Cancer Accreditation.  As a reviewer for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), CDR Vicente has helped evaluate projects and allocate millions of dollars of research funding since 2019.

As surgical faculty he has received the following awards from colleagues, residents, and medical students: Donald L. Sturtz Teaching Award 2022, Best Critical Care Paper at the 80^th Annual meeting of the American 2021, Norman M. Rich Award for Excellence in Teaching 2019, Lotzova Memorial Research Award 2018, Outstanding Senior Resident Teaching Award 2015, and the Colonel Juan C. d’Avis, M.D. Award for Excellence 2015.

When not at work, CDR Vicente can be found hiking, surfing, and climbing around San Diego with his wife and two children.

Councilperson at Large, US Air Force

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mary Stuever, DO, FACS

Councilperson at Large Air Force Lt Col Mary Stuever is a 2010 graduate of the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. She completed a mil-civ general surgery residency at Wright State University Wright Patterson Air Force Base in 2016, and a surgical critical care fellowship at the Ohio State University in 2018.

As an active-duty Air Force surgeon, she brings a diverse range of experiences to represent the Air Force community and to advocate for Air Force surgeons at various stages of their careers and across different practice environments, particularly in leadership and operational development. She is committed to addressing the critical issues of retention and recruitment of surgeons within the Air Force, as well as the greater DoD.

Councilperson at Large, Reserve/National Guard

Omar Rokayak, DO, FACS, USAFR, MC

Dr. Rokayak received his DO degree from VCOM-Virginia and completed general surgery residency at Stony Brook-Southampton Hospital in New York. As the first civilian to complete the Air Force Special Operations Command’s (AFSOC) Assessment and Selection, he matriculated directly into AFSOC’s Special Operations Surgical Teams (SOST). He graduated Officer Training School in 2018 and joined the division of trauma and acute care surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as a clinical assistant professor where he served for five years completing his surgical critical care fellowship at UAB before joining Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as an assistant professor in 2023. Dr. Rokayak is board certified in general surgery and surgical critical care and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Previously, he served as Co-Chair then Chair of the Excelsior Surgical Society’s Membership Committee.

With a focus on improving trauma care delivery, disaster management, and emergency preparedness in both civilian and military environments, Dr. Rokayak has been Co-Investigator on seven major grant-funded projects and currently is the principal investigator for VCU’s Military-Civilian Partnership’s (MCP) MISSION ZERO Grant. His published research includes works covering first responder training models, whole blood resuscitation strategies, hemorrhage control and management of shock, UAV delivery of blood products to remote areas, mass casualty management, ECMO use in trauma patients, outcomes of emergency trauma laparotomies, techniques for management of the open abdomen, modern management of combat trauma, MCP development and sustainment, and the use of telemedicine in trauma.

As the medical director of MCPs at VCU Health, Dr. Rokayak leads various efforts geared towards the goal of achieving zero preventable deaths both stateside and on the battlefield. Since 2018, he has aided with the enhancement of numerous techniques, tactics, and procedures geared towards trauma readiness for differing military units and providers. He received AFSOC’s 720th Special Tactics Group Physician of the Year Award in 2020 and was appointed chief medical officer of AFSOC’s SOST enterprise later that year. Since 2023, Rokayak has developed, instructed, and directed multiple new courses and curricula including VCU’s Fundamentals of Assessment and Management of Military Trauma (FAM2T), Trauma and Austere Surgical Skills Sustainment Training (TAS3T), Military Trauma Readiness and Currency (MTRC), and Advanced Tactical Paramedic Training (ATPT) programs.

On several combat deployments, including the Afghanistan withdrawal of 2021, he led three separate tactically trained teams responsible for highly mobile austere trauma surgery, critical care evacuation, and coverage of remote military installations in support of US Special Operations Forces (SOF), NATO SOF, and partner forces. Recognizing the unique privilege to have served with and learned from many invaluable colleagues and mentors throughout his time on Active-Duty as the greatest honor of his life, Rokayak is proud to remain active as a Reservist SOST surgeon and the Excelsior Surgical Society’s Executive Councilmember at Large for Reserves and National Guard.

Councilperson at Large, Civilian

Jeffrey A. Bailey, MD, FACS

Jeffrey Allen Bailey is a professor in the section of acute and critical care surgery at Washington University in St. Louis and an attending surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He is board-certified in general surgery with additional certification in surgical critical  are. He joined Washington University in September 2019 after retiring from the United States Air Force as a Colonel with over 43 years of service.

Bailey is also a professor in the department of surgery at Uniformed Services University. He serves on the Central Committee of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma and the Executive Council of the Excelsior Surgical Society as the Civilian Councilperson at Large. He is the organizer of JABKAD VENTURES, LLC, and a consultant for military and civilian trauma care and trauma systems.

His military roles included Chief of the Defense Health Agency (DHA) Joint Trauma System (JTS) and Special Assistant to the Assistant Director of DHA for Combat Support. He led the organizational assessment of the DoD trauma system, which was published in 2018, providing a blueprint for the operationalization of all elements of the JTS and Joint Trauma Education and Training Directorate in accordance with Public Law 114-328, Sections 707 and 708.

Bailey previously served as director for surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, director of the Joint Trauma System Defense Center of Excellence at Fort Sam Houston, TX, and director of the USAF Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills in St. Louis, MO. He has served as Chief of the Military Region of the ACS Regional Committees on Trauma and was a Specialty Governor of the ACS and president of the St. Louis Surgical Society.

His deployments included serving twice as Chief of Trauma at the central casualty receiving facility and air hub for OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM at Balad Air Base, Iraq. He also served twice as Joint Theater Trauma System Director for the US Central Command, covering operational theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan. His decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal (with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster), Air Force Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal (with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster), National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon with Gold Border, and NATO Medal. He was named the 2016 Hero of Military Medicine Honoree for the USAF.

Bailey earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Oklahoma, his Master’s in Public Administration from Golden Gate University, and his Medical Degree from Saint Louis University. He is a graduate of the USAF Air War College (DLC) and Aerospace Medicine Primary Course.

He is the bereaved husband of Kimberly Anne Doran of Hillsborough, CA, father of their daughters Jennifer and Shannon, and grandfather of their seven grandchildren.

Councilperson at Large, Resident/Fellow

Elise (Hill) Fannon, MD

Dr. Elise EH Fannon is a general surgery resident at UC Davis and a Captain in the US Air Force. Hailing from Iowa, she earned a BA in Biochemistry from the Air Force Academy in 2014, during which time she gained global perspective through time spent with the IDF in Israel. Her international experiences continued during medical school at the University of Iowa, where she volunteered in The Gambia, all of which has provided her with a unique lens through which she views and addresses global health challenges. During two years of research, Dr. Fannon earned an MPP from Princeton with a focus on the political determinants of health, solidifying her commitment to social justice and health equity. Her research interests additionally include military civilian partnerships and military surgeon expeditionary skills readiness. Dr. Fannon is passionate about diversity and inclusion, serving as the inaugural resident chair to Socially Responsible Surgery, participating on the ACS DEI task force, the Excelsior Society DEI committee, and the advisory board of Avenue M, a pipeline program for underrepresented minorities in medicine. She has also built a novel smart phone app to increase diversity in surgery. In her free time, Dr. Fannon enjoys singing, painting, and watching the Sacramento Kings light the beam!