Todd Rasmussen

Surgeon

Todd E. Rasmussen, MD, FACS is an American professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, and a Senior Associate Consultant in the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery.[1] Prior to joining the Mayo Clinic, he had a 28-year career in the military, retiring as an Air Force Colonel in 2021. His most recent military assignment was as Associate Dean or Research at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and an attending surgeon at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

## Personal life and education

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A native of Kansas, Rasmussen completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas and his medical degree at Mayo Medical School (1993), followed by surgical training at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base and vascular surgery specialty training at Mayo Clinic.[1][2]

## Career

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Rasmussen had been assigned to Andrews Air Force Base just before September 11, 2001, and soon after began caring for the injured returning from Afghanistan at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He began a series of deployments to the Air Force Theater Hospital on Balad Air Base[3] as well as Bagram Air Base and the Afghan National Army Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. During this time in the Air Force, he initiated a research and innovation program aimed at developing a better understanding of vascular injury, hemorrhage control and shock as well as new approaches to managing these conditions.[4]

Rasmussen has led training missions in Morocco, Pakistan, and Russia, and his research efforts have resulted in hundreds of publications, including two textbooks, the Handbook of Patient Care in Vascular Diseases and the third and fourth editions of Rich's Vascular Trauma.[5][6] He co-authored "Vascular Injury Rates in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan", in which he wrote that the frequency of vascular injury on the battlefield has increased by a factor of five between Vietnam and the later wars.[7][8] Rasmussen was also one of the investigators in the Military Application of Tranexamic Acid in Trauma Resuscitation Study (MATTERS), which was a collaboration with British researchers on the use of tranexamic acid (TXA) in patients with severe bleeding.[9] The study indicated that patients treated with TXA survived twice as often as those who did not receive the drug.[10][11]

Rasmussen is a co-inventor of resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA), a minimally invasive approach used to sustain blood pressure and control bleeding in severely injured and shocked patients.[12] The ER-REBOA catheter has been used thousands of times in the U.S. and around the world.[13][14]

In 2019, Rasmussen led a team of military surgeons at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as the first in the Military Health System (MHS) to implant a human acellular vessel, or HAV, into a patient who was in danger of losing his leg from vascular disease.[15] Rasmussen had previously worked in support of the research and development of this bioengineered blood vessel which has significant potential to be used in the management of wartime vascular injury.

Rasmussen was a 2019–2020 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Council of Deans fellow,[16] and in February 2020 he delivered the Peter Safar lecture at the Society of Critical Care Medicine in Orlando, Florida.[17] In 2021, Rasmussen was selected to serve on the board of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.[18] Following his retirement from the Air Force he joined the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.[1]

Rasmussen served as Deputy Commander of the Institute of Surgical Research from 2010 to 2013 and then moved to direct the larger Department of Defense Combat Casualty Care Research Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland. His awards include the Gold Headed Cane for distinction in clinical and academic practice, the NATO Dominique Jean Larrey Award for Excellence in Military Surgery, and in 2015, he was recognized as a Hero in Medicine by the Center for Public-Private Partnerships.[18][19]

Rasmussen has contributed to articles published in USA Today,[20] the Health Affairs blog[4] and The New England Journal of Medicine.[21]

## References

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1. ^ a b c "Todd E. Rasmussen, M.D." Mayo Clinic. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
2. ^ "Col. Todd E. Rasmussen". TEDxSanAntonio. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
3. ^ Rich, Norman M.; Hughes, Carl W.; DeBakey, Michael E. (December 1, 2007). "Recognition of Air Force surgeons at Wilford Hall Medical Center-supported 332nd EMDG/Air Force Theater Hospital, Balad Air Base, Iraq". Journal of Vascular Surgery. 46 (6): 1312–1313\. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2007.08.064. ISSN 0741-5214. PMID 18155012.
4. ^ a b Kellermann, Arthur L.; Elster, Eric; Rasmussen, Todd (July 3, 2018). "How The US Military Reinvented Trauma Care And What This Means For US Medicine". Health Affairs. doi:10.1377/forefront.20180628.431867.
5. ^ Stanley, Andrew (January 2002). "Handbook of patient care in vascular diseases". Journal of Vascular Surgery. 35 (1): 198. doi:10.1067/mva.2002.118731.
6. ^ Rasmussen, Todd E.; Tai, Nigel R. M. (August 12, 2021). "Rich's Vascular Trauma". Elsevier Health Sciences.
7. ^ White, Joseph M.; Rasmussen, Todd E.; Stannard, Adam; Burkhardt, Gabriel; Eastridge, Brian; Blackbourne, Lorne H. (August 23, 2010). Vascular Injury in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Report). Army Institute of Surgical Research. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
8. ^ Gregorian, Jamie A. "Combat Casualty Care Conference highlights advancements in care". AAOS. Archived from the original on June 3, 2010. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
9. ^ Morrison, Jonathan J.; Dubose, Joseph J.; Rasmussen, Todd E.; Midwinter, Mark J. (February 1, 2012). "Military Application of Tranexamic Acid in Trauma Emergency Resuscitation (MATTERs) Study". Archives of Surgery. 147 (2): 113–119\. doi:10.1001/archsurg.2011.287. ISSN 1538-3644. PMID 22006852.
10. ^ "Military application of TXA in trauma emergency resuscitation study proves TXA should be implemented into military clinical practice". Army Medical Department. January 24, 2012. Archived from the original on February 22, 2013. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
11. ^ McNeil, Donald (March 20, 2012). "A cheap drug is found to save bleeding victims". The New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
12. ^ Stannard, Adam; Eliason, Jonathan L.; Rasmussen, Todd E. (December 2011). "Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) as an Adjunct for Hemorrhagic Shock". Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection & Critical Care. 71 (6): 1869–1872\. doi:10.1097/TA.0b013e31823fe90c. ISSN 0022-5282.
13. ^ Marshall, Sarah (July 17, 2017). "Counter-Hemorrhaging Medical Device Saves Service Members' Lives". U.S. Department of Defense. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
14. ^ Grady, Denise (June 19, 2017). "Inspired by War Zones, Balloon Device May Save Civilians From Fatal Blood Loss". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
15. ^ Marshall, Sarah (May 22, 2019). "Surgeons Perform First Bioengineered Blood Vessel Transplant in Military Patient". Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
16. ^ "Past COD Fellows". Association of American Medical Colleges. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
17. ^ Rasmussen, Todd (February 18, 2020). The Future of Critical Care Medicine in the Field. Society of Critical Care Medicine. Retrieved January 27, 2024 – via YouTube.
18. ^ a b "Todd E. Rasmussen, MD, FACS". National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
19. ^ Col. (Dr.) Todd Rasmussen honored as Air Force's 2015 Hero of Military Medicine. Air Force Medical Service. May 20, 2015 – via YouTube.
20. ^ Rasmussen, Todd E.; Martin, Matthew J. (December 28, 2017). "Tragedies of 2017 showed how military medical partners can help at home". USA Today. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
21. ^ Rasmussen, Todd E.; Kellermann, Arthur L. (October 27, 2016). "Wartime Lessons — Shaping a National Trauma Action Plan". New England Journal of Medicine. 375 (17): 1612–1615\. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1607636. ISSN 0028-4793.