Thomas Duncan, DO

About

Dr. Duncan is fortunate to be a foundational member of an established multidisciplinary surgical group (Ventura County Surgical Associates) and runs a robust practice that encompasses emergency general surgery diagnoses. In addition, he has an elective component that involves minimally invasive robotic surgery for hernia, gallbladder, and some advanced abdominal cases. His practice also includes benign and malignant breast cases. As such, he was involved in the early development of Ventura County Medical Center’s (VCMC’s) Commission on Cancer designation.

Thomas is the Trauma Medical Director at VCMC, where he has been the past chief of medical staff. He is the co-director of Anacapa Surgical Associates, and vice president of Ventura County Surgical Associates. He was a part of the multidisciplinary team involved in creating the trauma system in Ventura County. With the evolution of blood products administration, he was involved in creating the first in-hospital whole blood program in the tri-counties, and a committee member instrumental in early development of a prehospital whole blood program in California. In so doing, Ventura County was the first in the state of California to administer units of prehospital whole blood.

He is the leader/founder of the Violence Intervention Program – Emergency Entry to Exit (VIP-EEE) and the Elderly Fall Prevention Program of Ventura County. Dr. Duncan is a member of the National/Central American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS-COT) and involved in the advocacy and injury prevention and violence control sections. He is a governor of the American College of Surgeons, vice-chair of the Southern California Chapter of the American College of Surgeons Trauma Section, and immediate past chair of the Prevention Committee of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) and Ventura County Family Justice Center Foundation Board. Other organizational boards Dr. Duncan sits on include the American Board of Surgery Trauma Burns Surgical Critical Care, and Artists for Trauma. He was awarded the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) Presidential Award in 2023 for Distinguished Service. He was inducted into the prestigious American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Surgeon Educators in 2025. Thomas has contributed to many publications on firearm violence, falls, and other preventable injuries. He was the injury prevention chapter lead for the Advanced Trauma Life Support 11th edition course update launched in 2025.

Including being a dedicated believer in mentorship, his mission is to provide staunch advocacy and support locally in Ventura County and internationally to those without a voice, create a pathway for improving lives of patients by reducing morbidity and mortality (regardless of diagnosis), repeat injury or re-victimization, and echoes the mantra of the American College of Surgeons: to attain zero preventable deaths after injury.