Michael Samotowka, MD, FACS
Affiliate Medical Director
Dr. Michael Samotowka has flown air medical missions for AirMed International for more than 12 years. He joined AirMed as a staff flight physician in 1997, and currently serves as an AirMed's affiliate medical director from his position as Section Chief of Acute Care Surgery/Trauma at Cleveland Clinic, Department of General Surgery. Some of his most memorable air medical missions include several transports to Cuba, Kenya and Ukraine. He is board certified in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a fellow of the College of Chest Physicians as well as a fellow of the College of Critical Care Medicine.
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Dr. Samotowka completed undergraduate and medical school at State University of New York at Buffalo. He completed his General Surgery residency at the Medical College of Pennsylvania 1995 and then stayed in Philadelphia at Hahnemann University for Trauma/Critical Care fellowship. In 1996 he went to Yale New Haven University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut as clinical instructor of General Surgery and fellow in the Critical Care Surgery department. He joined the staff of Huntsville Hospital as a Trauma/Critical Care and General Surgeon in August of 1997.
He has co-authored several papers in various surgical journals dealing with issues of Surgical Critical Care. His clinical interests are liver trauma and the surgery of the liver.. He is an avid enthusiast of thoroughbred horse racing and is the part owner of the 2009 Kentucky Derby hopeful, “There Goes Jo Jo.”
Jeffrey T. Tolbert, CEO of AirMed, set the world record for a nonstop flight in a Boeing 737, logging 6,854 nautical miles in 14 hours and 12 minutes.
