Dr. Bulger is a Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Trauma, Burns, and Critical Care at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, and the Surgeon-in-Chief at Harborview Medical Center. She has served in a variety of leadership roles within the Washington State Trauma System since 2003, including as Chair of the WA EMS and Trauma Care Steering Committee from 2010-2015. At the national level, she served as the Chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma from 2018-2022 and as Medical Director for Trauma Programs at the American College of Surgeons, 2022-2026. She also served as the President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma from 2022 to 2023. Dr. Bulger advocates strongly for injury prevention, prehospital care, and disaster preparedness. She currently serves as Chair of the Steering Committee for the National Healthcare Coalition for Firearm Injury Prevention and is a Medical Officer with the NDMS Trauma Critical Care Team.
In her national leadership roles, she led several joint projects with the American College of Emergency Physicians, including joint statements and guidelines to inform EMS and emergency care, trauma system development and regional coordination of mass casualty response, implementation of injury prevention initiatives, and development of the National Guidelines for the Field Triage of Injured Patients. She also helped establish the Coalition for National Trauma Research, which seeks to strengthen the funding and infrastructure for clinical research to advance trauma care.
