Trauma & Critical Care Surgeon - Medical Director

Specialties & Experience of this Expert Witness

Additional Information

Dr. Abdullah Wafa is a dual board-certified Trauma and Acute Care Surgeon and Surgical Critical Care specialist, currently serving as Medical Director of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery service at Inova Fairfax Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Falls Church, Virginia. He also holds an academic appointment as Assistant Professor of Medical Education at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Dr. Wafa completed his General Surgery residency at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor and a Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Michigan. He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery (for both General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care). He has practiced as an attending trauma and acute care surgeon since November 2020, first at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Hospital (a Level I Trauma Center in Wilkes-Barre, PA) and currently at Inova Fairfax Hospital. As Medical Director, Dr. Wafa leads clinical practice guideline development across multiple domains including blunt cerebrovascular injury, hemorrhagic shock, inhalation injury, and point-of-care ultrasound (FAST/POCUS) protocols. He chairs the OR Turnover Time Committee and serves on the hospital's sepsis oversight committee. He previously chaired the Clinical Practice Guideline Committee across all Geisinger campuses. Dr. Wafa's clinical and academic background spans the full breadth of trauma and emergency general surgery, including damage control surgery, exploratory laparotomy, thoracotomy, splenectomy, bowel resection, and management of complex surgical complications. He is a certified instructor for Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) and Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma (ASSET). He regularly teaches residents and medical students in operative and simulation-based settings. He is co-author of two book chapters in Passing the General Surgery Oral Board Exam, 3rd ed. (Springer, 2025): "Surgical Site Infections" and "Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infections." He currently serves as Principal Investigator on a study using the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) dataset to investigate injury patterns and severity scoring in motor vehicle crash victims. Dr. Wafa is available to review cases involving trauma resuscitation, emergency general surgery, delayed diagnosis, surgical decision-making, operative complications, and causation in the setting of traumatic injury, general surgery, and surgical critical care.