• Chief of Trauma & Acute Care Surgery, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich.
• Director of Surgical Services Clinical Operations, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich.
• Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, East Lansing, Mich.
  

While Dr. Mercer may have spent most of his professional career in the warmer climes of Texas and New Mexico, he also spent some time as a surgeon and hospital CEO in a New Zealand Hospital, so he may be prepared for the hot and cold of Michigan’s climate. No matter where he is practicing, he is sure to keep a cool head.

He is the former director of Trauma Surgery & Trauma Research Fellowships at Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich.

Education

• Bachelor of Science in Microbiology (Honors): Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
• Medical School: Texas Tech University School of Medicine, Lubbock, Texas
• Surgery Residency: Paul Foster School of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas
• Trauma Surgery Fellowship: Paul Foster School of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas

Certifications

• Surgery
• Surgical Critical Care
• Wound Management
  
• Advanced Trauma Life Support (Provider, instructor, course director)
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support (Provider)
• Fundamentals of Critical Care Support (Instructor, course director)
• Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma (Provider, instructor)

Languages

• English
• Spanish

Research and Quality Improvement

Dr. Mercer has chaired and/or has been a member of Institutional Review committees and Quality Improvement committees within various departments and institutions, as well as within entire health-care systems. In addition, he has served on state and national committees to improve quality, standards, policies, technology, and other focus areas - and holds two US patents.

Past national and international presentations focused on the topics of:

• Rationing in the US healthcare delivery system
• Required attributes of healthcare leadership
• Information technology and the risks posed to health information privacy
• Ethics of public health provision
• Integrated clinical information systems
• Information technology, the internet and healthcare
• Radiology implications of a lifetime clinical record
• Privacy and confidentiality in clinical informatics, perils of the internet
• Pediatric head & abdominal trauma
  
• Injury in childhood
• Traumatic wounds and burns

Past books, chapters and monographs have been published in the 5-Minute Clinical Consult, Conn’s Current Therapy, and others.

Academics

Dr. Mercer has served as a tenured associate professor of surgery as well as other academic ranks for much of his professional career and has much experience teaching residents and medical students, as well as serving on Graduate Medical Education committees.

Clinical experience

Dr. Mercer has vast experience in acute-care surgery, critical care, trauma and wound care in hospital-based practice.

He also has headed up clinical program-development efforts in acute-care surgery, surgery critical care and trauma in two academic medical centers, in addition to establishing a Level III trauma center in a rural area covering nine counties. He developed a wound-care center to provide evidence-based wound management for chronic and complex wounds and implemented a multidisciplinary intensivist program, staffed by medical and surgical-based critical-care and acute-care nurse practitioners.