Dr. Mackenzie Cook is a trauma surgeon in OHSU’s Division of Trauma, Critical Care and Acute Care Surgery, with an added focus on:

• ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) management and transport
• Surgical stabilization of rib fractures
• Serious illness communication

He co-directs the Surgery Clinical Experience clerkship program.

His research interests include:

• Serious illness communication
• Surgical stabilization of rib fractures and chest wall injury
• Curriculum development in medical education

Dr. Cook was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a small town in Connecticut. He attended college at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and then spent a year backpacking and skiing in Utah before attending medical school at Duke University in Durham, N.C. 

He spent his dedicated research year in medical school at the University of Wisconsin in the endocrine surgery lab as a Howard Hughes medical scholar. He then headed west for residency at OHSU,  where he completed a dedicated research year in the Trauma Research Institute of Oregon.  He graduated from residency in 2016 and completed a surgical critical care fellowship at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle in 2017.

He joined the faculty at OHSU in the fall of 2017 and has built his clinical practice around caring for the sickest and most severely injured patients in Oregon. He joined the OHSU ECMO team as an intensivist (a critical care specialist) and as part of the OHSU mobile ECMO team, flying throughout the Pacific Northwest to care for the most critically ill patients. 

He has also developed a significant clinical interest in treating patients with blunt chest wall injuries.  These can be debilitating injuries and he was the first surgeon in Oregon to offer minimally invasive surgical stabilization of rib fractures (SSRF). 

He has maintained a strong interest in improving communication with patients and families in the ICU as well as teaching the next generation of physicians.

Dr. Cook lives in Portland with his wife, Crystal, their three kids and two rambunctious dogs. Avid hikers, skiers, travelers and climbers, the Cook family is happy to call Portland home.