Dr. James M. Tatum is a board-certified trauma, acute care, and critical care surgeon with over a decade of clinical, academic, and leadership experience. He currently serves as Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, California, where he also provides trauma and acute care surgery and surgical critical care. He additionally maintains active surgical staff appointments at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, Kaiser Baldwin Park Medical Center, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, and St. Mary’s Medical Center.

Dr. Tatum’s career reflects a strong foundation in academic medicine. He previously held faculty positions as Clinical Instructor of Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC (2015–2017) and again during his fellowship years (2017–2018), as well as Attending Surgeon roles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and LAC+USC Medical Center. Since 2024, he has also served as an Expert Medical Witness and Case Reviewer with MRK Medical Consulting.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2010 and completed his General Surgery Residency at USC (2010–2015). He went on to complete advanced training including a Thoracic Research Fellowship (2015–2016), a Trauma/Critical Care Fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (2016–2017), and an Advanced Minimally Invasive and Esophageal Surgery Fellowship at USC (2017–2018). Dr. Tatum is dual board-certified by the American Board of Surgery in Surgery (2015) and Surgical Critical Care (2017) and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

An active researcher and educator, Dr. Tatum has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Surgical Endoscopy, JAMA Surgery, The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, and The American Surgeon. His scholarly contributions include book chapters in Current Surgical Therapy and Chassin’s Operative Strategy in General Surgery. He also serves as a journal reviewer and assistant editor for the International Journal of Surgery.

With clinical expertise spanning trauma, critical care, minimally invasive surgery, and surgical leadership, Dr. Tatum is committed to advancing patient care through evidence-based practice, education, and multidisciplinary collaboration.