David Machado-Aranda, MD

Dr. David Machado-Aranda, M.D., F.A.C.S., is a Health Science Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery, Trauma, and Critical Care. He is also the Associate Program Director for the Fellowship in Surgical Critical Care based at Ronald Reagan Medical Center.

Dr. Machado-Aranda graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Luis Razetti School of Medicine of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) – Caracas, Venezuela, in 1998 and was the salutatorian of a class of 208, receiving the Lorenzo Campins and Ballester Dean’s Medal. After performing his year of mandatory rural service, he emigrated to the United States to pursue his dream of becoming a clinician-scientist.

From 2000 to 2005, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at David Dean’s laboratory in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, learning about lung molecular biology and non-viral gene therapy. He resumed clinical training in General Surgery at Ascension Health Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan, followed by a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at the University of Michigan, where he has stayed as Faculty from 2010 until the summer of 2022.

His practice is focused on Acute Care Surgery, providing timely surgical treatment for the severely injured and acutely ill patients after trauma and inpatient/outpatient emergencies, and afterward continuing with their support during multisystem and organ failure, including damage control techniques and advanced technologies including REBOA, ECMO, Ventilator Management and Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy. Complementing this clinical mission, he is basic science and translational researcher studying the molecular basis of post-traumatic and post-surgical Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Sepsis, receiving extramural funding from the American Association for Surgery of Trauma (AAST) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the author of over 50 peer-review publications. He is a member and panelist of many surgical societies, including the American College of Surgeons, the AAST, the Pan-American Trauma Society, the Surgical Infection Society, the Shock Society, and the Latino Surgical Society, among others. He is an ad hoc reviewer for many important surgical journals and studies sections for the Department of Defense and NIH.

Being raised by parents who were biology professors and staff at the Smithsonian, the Field Museum of Natural History, Museo de Biologia de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, and other world-renowned museums, his childhood gave him a unique perspective on scientific discovery, education, and the importance of diversity in all its different aspects, which are pretty engrained in his teaching philosophy. A former member of the Venezuelan Red Cross, he is also committed to community outreach and service.

David is fluent in English and Spanish, an avid reader of science fiction and alternative history, an outdoors enthusiast, and a soccer player; he is a member of the United States Medical Soccer Team (USMST), having proudly represented the US in the World Medical Football (Soccer) Championships.