Dr. Travis Polk to Deliver Dimick Lecture at the Southern Region Burn Conference
The Southern Region Burn Conference is proud to announce that Travis M. Polk, MD, FACS, Captain (Retired), Medical Corps, US Navy, will deliver the Alan R. Dimick, MD Guest Lecture at the Conference which is taking place in Charleston, SC, October 30-November 2, 2025.
This year's Dimick Lecture, Understanding the Future Battlefield: Burn Care Challenges, will take place on Friday, October 31 and serves to deepen participants’ understanding of the difficulties involved with military burn victims.
CAPT (Ret.) Travis Polk, MD, FACS is a Professor of Surgery within the Division of General and Trauma Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Military Medicine Research. Dr. Polk earned his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Norwich University in 1997 and his Doctor of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University in 2001. He completed his general surgery residency at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in 2008, followed by a fellowship in traumatology, surgical critical care, and emergency surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. After retiring from the U.S. Navy with 28 years of active duty service, CAPT (Ret.) Polk joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2025.
Dr. Polk brings extensive expertise in military-civilian trauma collaborations and surgical simulation, having deployed multiple times both at sea and in Afghanistan. In his final five years of military service, he directed the Department of Defense’s Combat Casualty Care Research Program, leading the strategic planning and operational management of combat-related trauma research investments and overseeing nearly $1 billion in awards. During this period, he spearheaded several significant international military medical collaborations with NATO, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Ukraine, and served as a U.S. representative to the NATO Blood Panel. Dr. Polk is an active member of multiple military and medical professional organizations and currently holds the position of Military Region Chief for the ACS Committee on Trauma.
