NorthGauge’s Steering Committee of top performing doctors and physicians. Each person is experienced in physician leadership and in the discipline of peer reviews. Above all, this provides not only medical and strategic direction for the company in general, but also for a defined clinical specialty areas. These physician leaders are instrumental in the growth, development and success of NorthGauge.
Robert Mordkin, MD, FACS, Urology
Dr. Robert Mordkin attended the University of Southern California Medical School and graduated Alpha Omega Alpha in 1992. He then completed both his surgical internship and his urological surgery residency at Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, in 1998. During his residency, he served as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve and received an Honorable Discharge in September, 2004. He received advanced training in reconstructive and female urology at the Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. Dr. Mordkin then joined the full-time faculty in the Georgetown University Hospital Department of Urology in October of 1998.
As an Associate Professor at Georgetown, he served on a number of Hospital and Medical School committees and was the Director of Laparoscopic Urology. As Director, he was the first urologist in Washington, DC to perform a laparoscopic prostatectomy. Dr. Mordkin has also served as Associate Professor in the Rush University Medical Center Division of Urology and Director of Robotic and Laparoscopic Urologic Surgery at the Rush-Riverside Medical Center. Currently, Dr. Mordkin is the Chief of Urology and the Director of Robotic and Laparoscopic Surgery at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Urology and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
He is also member of the American Urological Association and the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons. Dr. Mordkin has authored numerous journal articles and meeting abstracts on a wide range of urological issues. He has lectured both locally and nationally and has been an instructor for a number of new urological procedures, including the robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy, partial nephrectomy and single port surgery. He has been recognized by both residents and colleagues for his dedication to his profession and the field of urology by receiving the Georgetown Urology Outstanding Resident Teacher Award and the Maxted Award for Outstanding Faculty Teacher. Dr. Mordkin is regularly recognized as a Top Doctor by Washingtonian Magazine and Northern Virginia Magazine.
Wade Smith, MD, FACS, Orthopedic Surgery
Dr. Smith received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Cincinnati. He received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1990. Dr. Smith completed an Orthopaedic Surgery Residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He subsequently completed a one year Fellowship in Orthopaedic Traumatology at the University of Pittsburgh.
He passed his oral boards in Orthopaedic Surgery and became a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery in 1998. He performed additional fellowships for limb salvage in Lecco, Italy and Kurgan, Russia. After developing a high volume trauma service at Denver Health Medical Center he became Director of the Department in 2002 until 2009. He served on the Governor appointed State Trauma Board as the representative for Level 1 Trauma Surgeons in Colorado. Dr. Smith joined Geisinger Health Systems as the Director of Orthopaedic Trauma and Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery in June 2009. He returned to Colorado in June 2011 to join his long time practice partner and research collaborator, Steven Morgan MD with the Mountain Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeons at Swedish Medical Center (MOTUS).
Dr. Smith’s practice consists of 95% Orthopaedic Trauma. His primary clinical focus centers on the Orthopaedic care of the multiply injured patient, unstable pelvic fractures, acetabular fractures, nonunions, infection and periarticular fracture management. Dr. Smith is active in research and regularly teaches at local, national and international levels. He is a participating member of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery, American Orthopaedic Association, American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, American Association for Surgery and Trauma and an AO Professor. He also serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals and continues to train and mentor clinician researchers from around the world.
Stephan Moran, MD, FACS, General and Trauma Surgery/Surgical Critical Care
Dr. Moran is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Huntsville Regional Campus of the University of Alabama School of Medicine and currently the Medical Director of the Surgical & Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Huntsville Hospital, Huntsville, Alabama. Additionally, he is affiliated with Huntsville Surgical Associates.
Dr. Moran graduated summa cum laude from Birmingham-Southern College and with Honors from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, where he later completed a fellowship in trauma and surgical critical care. He also completed an internship in family practice at Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham and a residency in general surgery at Wright-Patterson Medical Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. In addition, he is certified in surgical critical care by the American Board of Surgery and is an instructor of Advanced Trauma Life Support.
Coauthor of more than a dozen journal articles and a book chapter, Dr. Moran has written about a computer model to predict head injury during auto collisions, vacuum-assisted complex wound closure, and chest computed tomography and blunt aortic injury, among other topics. He also has given numerous presentations on managing complex wounds, ventilator modalities, and strategies for decreasing antibiotic resistance. Dr. Moran is especially dedicated to research on automotive safety; he speaks frequently at automotive society meetings and has been interviewed on American and Canadian syndicated radio. Governor Bob Riley, Alabama, appointed Dr. Moran as an expert witness to testify before the study group examining the issue of seat belts in school buses following the tragic school bus accident in Huntsville, Alabama.
A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (and a member of the Alabama affiliate’s Committee on Trauma) and the Southeastern Surgical Congress, Dr. Moran also is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine and the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and Vice Chairman of the North Alabama Regional Trauma Advisory Council.
Stephen Schutz, MD, Gastroenterology/Internal Medicine
Dr. Schutz joined the Digestive Health Clinic in 2001 after 13 years in the Air Force. He graduated from Albany Medical College in 1988 before completing his internal medicine residency at Wright Patterson Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Schutz completed his gastroenterology fellowship at Duke University Medical Center, where he obtained training in advanced endoscopic therapy of the bile duct and pancreas. Dr. Schutz has published extensively in the GI literature, and is board-certified in gastroenterology.
He is a fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology as well as a member of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and American Gastroenterological Association. He has served as President of the Ada County Medical Society and as Idaho Governor for American College of Gastroenterology. He has a major interest in medical quality and patient satisfaction, serving on a national committee studying endoscopic outcome.
Jeffrey Milliken, MD, FACS, Cardiothoracic Surgery
Dr. Milliken attended medical school at the University of Michigan. He then completed a residency in general surgery at UCLA Medical Center and a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at both UCLA Medical Center and at Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia for pediatric cardiac surgery. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He now serves as Chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and as Clinical Professor, Department of Surgery at the University of California – Irvine Medical Center.
Dr. Milliken has been consistently listed in “The Best Doctors in America,” “Who’s Who in Collegiate Faculty,” “Guide to America’s Top Surgeons” and “Southern California Super Doctors.” He has been received the Physician’s of Excellence Award from the Orange County Medical Association. He regularly speaks on many topics related his clinical specialty.
Martin Durtschi, MD, FACS, General Surgery
Dr. Durtschi is a practicing general surgeon with extensive experience in both urban and rural surgery. A graduate of both the School of Medicine and the General Surgery Residency at the University of Washington, he also completed a post-doctoral N.I.H. fellowship in Burns and Trauma. He was for many years a member of the clinical teaching staff of both the University of Washington and the Swedish Hospital Medical Center residency programs in Seattle, Washington. He has been in the private practice of general and thoracic surgery for the past three decades and was among the first to perform major laparoscopic and thoracoscopic surgery in Seattle. He was the thoracic surgical consultant for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 1985 to 2000. More recently, he co-founded and led a surgicalist program for both urban and rural hospitals in the St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho.
Dr. Durtschi has participated nearly continuously in surgical society, medical staff and hospital leadership at all levels including as Chief of Staff, as a member of his hospital’s Board of Directors and Foundation Board of Directors, and as President and Trustee of the University of Washington Harkins Surgical Society. He has worked extensively over the past decade in performance improvement and implementation of evidence based clinical surgery. As a St. Luke’s Health System Clinical Medical Director he has been responsible for instituting and executing comprehensive QI/PI programs across a geographically expansive and diverse medical system that includes both tertiary referral and primary rural hospitals.
He has reviewed surgical quality and surgical programs widely across the US, and has trained at both the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston and Intermountain Health System in Salt Lake City in performance improvement science and methodology. Dr. Durtschi has also been a co-founder, partner, and board member in private medical enterprises including ambulatory surgical centers, multispecialty and single specialty clinical groups and medical office buildings. He has been a board examiner for and is certified by the American Board of Surgery and he is a fellow of the American College of Surgeon.
