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Considered one of the world’s leading authorities on battlefield care of musculoskeletal trauma, Captain Dana C. Covey, M.D., ’84, is this year’s recipient of the UW’s Distinguished Alumni Veteran Award. A decorated combat veteran, orthopaedic surgeon and professor, he has dedicated his professional life to contributions to the Navy and the medical profession.

As a professor at University of California San Diego, Covey is a role model for young physicians. His “extraordinary personal standards of competency and dedication to service and integrity, transcend his international reputation as one of the world’s leading authorities on combat surgery,” according to his nomination for the UW award.

Born in Woodland, California, Covey attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he studied oceanography. He later completed a master’s degree in immunology/zoology from the University of Idaho. In his 40 years in the Navy, he rose to the rank of captain and eventually served as a combat surgeon. His deployments include Iraq and Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Haiti, the former Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and at sea in the Persian Gulf.

His military decorations include two Legion of Merit awards, a Bronze Star Medal, three Meritorious Service Medals, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, a Combat Action Ribbon, a Joint Meritorious Unit Award with Oak Leaf Cluster and numerous campaign, unit and service awards. He is a designated Surface Warfare Medical Officer and achieved Fleet Marine Force Officer Qualification.

In 1984, Covey received his medical degree with honors from the University of Washington. “My education and other experiences during my time at the UW prepared me well for the challenges of orthopaedic surgical training and beyond,” Covey says. “I found my trauma experience at Harborview Medical Center especially beneficial. I had outstanding professors and mentors who inspired me to pursue academic orthopaedic surgery and the education of medical students and residents.”

Covey went on to complete his orthopaedic surgery internship and residency at Louisiana State University and an orthopaedic surgery fellowship in sports medicine and athletic trauma surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. His research includes studying the mitigation of injury in service members through the use of newly improved personal body armor, contributing clinical rationale for the redesigned combat vehicles, enhanced field surgical training, rapid medical evacuation and the close availability of a forward surgical team. His recognition in the medical field rivals his military honors and include Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Award for Excellence in Military Medicine, the American Orthopaedic Association North American Traveling Fellowship, membership in the scientific research honor society Sigma Xi, the Sir Henry Wellcome Medal and Prize for outstanding medical research and the Colonel Brian Allgood Memorial Award for Excellence in Military Orthopaedic Leadership. In 2019, Covey was awarded the William W. Tipton Jr., MD Leadership Award, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ most prestigious award in recognition of his outstanding leadership in service to his nation, profession and patients.

A research physician and an innovative scholar whose published work has led to advances in humanitarian care and wartime surgery, Covey is considered a lion in his field. His professionalism epitomizes the ideals expressed in the Navy’s core values of honor, courage and commitment. Despite his long list of accomplishments, Covey regards the UW’s Distinguished Alumni Veteran Award among the highest acknowledgements he has received. “I am honored and humbled to have even been considered for this award from my alma mater, one of the great universities of our nation,” he says.

Currently a professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of California San Diego, Covey also practices as an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician.