Dr. Heidi L. Frankel has been named chief of the Division of Trauma and Critical Care and Acute Care Surgery at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Frankel also will serve as the director of the Shock Trauma Center and holds an academic appointment as David L. Nahrwold professor of surgery at the Penn State College of Medicine.
Frankel is taking over the position from Dr. Robert Cherry, who serves now as associate chief quality officer for the Medical Center.
Prior to her appointment, Frankel served as director of Surgical Critical Care and the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where she was a professor of surgery, and previously at the Yale New Haven Hospital, where she was an associate professor of surgery. She started her academic career at the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor in the division of traumatology.
Frankel received her undergraduate degree from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and her medical degree from the University of Maryland in Baltimore. She completed her surgical training at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Md., and her surgical critical care fellowship at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.
She is an active member of the Eastern Association of the Surgery of Trauma and the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma. She serves on the council and as past president of the surgical section of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the National Ultrasound Faculty of the American College of Surgeons, where she is the vice chair for education. She has authored three books and numerous articles in areas of trauma and ICU ultrasound and performance improvement. She is a clinically active acute care surgeon and intensivist.