Dr. Thomas grew up in Michigan, attended Western Michigan University for his undergraduate studies and Michigan State University for medical school. He completed his surgical residency at Mount Clemens Reginal Medical Center near Detroit. He moved to Baltimore in 2005 for his fellowship in Trauma and Critical Care at The University of Maryland, Shock Trauma Center. Dr. Thomas is double boarded in general surgery and surgical critical care and has practiced as an academic trauma and emergency general surgeon since 2006. During his career he has established 2 separate national referral clinics for complex abdominal wall surgery, one in Detroit and one in Chicago.
Dr. Thomas is Chief Medical Officer for The Surgicalist Group as well as the senior partner at Salt Lake Surgical Services. His current practice focuses on acute care surgery, complex abdominal wall defects, infected mesh issues, and enterocutaneous fistulas. Dr. Thomas gained the skills to handle these difficult cases from spending over a dozen years practicing as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Loyola University in Chicago specializing in complex re-operative cases.
Dr. Thomas has published many peer-reviewed studies and book chapters on various topics including abdominal wall reconstruction, negative pressure wound therapy, and trauma management. He has been an invited lecturer at dozens of national and international meetings. Today his main professional interests are in the area of the complex hernia patient, improving outcomes, surgical nutrition, decreasing complications and evidence-based lean surgical protocols.