Martin Durtschi, MD, FACS, General Surgery
April 7, 2017 | Posted in
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.