Q&A: El Paso Surgeon On-Call During Mass Shooting Response

Just as Alan Tyroch, MD, sat down to breakfast in Las Vegas on the morning of Aug. 3, celebrating his mother in-law's 90th birthday, a gunman walked into a Walmart hundreds of miles away in his hometown of El Paso and opened fire, ultimately killing 22 people and injuring 24 more. Over the following minutes, as shooting victims were rushed to hospitals throughout El Paso, Dr. Tyroch - chief of surgery and trauma medical director at University Medical Center of El Paso - was coordinating and delegating duties via text to the hospital's numerous surgeons, physicians, residents, and other health care professionals.