Dr. Jurkovich is Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington and Chief of Trauma at Harborview Medical Center. He received an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University and his MD degree from the University of Minnesota. His surgery residency was at the University of Colorado, with a trauma research fellowship at Duke University.

Dr. Jurkovich has looked extensively at some of the major problems in trauma, including new methods of measuring outcome in trauma patients, the role of hypothermia in trauma, alcohol and injury, the immune-inflammatory response to injury, and nutritional support in the critically injured.

Dr. Jurkovich is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Trauma and the textbook "ACS Surgery: Principles and Practices." He has held leadership positions in the Association of Academic Surgeons and the Society of University Surgeons, and has served as President of the Western Trauma Association and the Washington State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He is the current President of the Western Surgical Association. He has served as Vice Chairman and Chief of Regions of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS/COT). He has chaired the AAST Committee on the Acute Care Surgeon, working to define the future training paradigm for trauma surgeons, and he is a recent Past President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.