Our Orthopedic Specialists

The Clinicians Who See Patients Here

These three are the practice's clinicians. Each divides the week between consultation clinics and operating days, which is deliberate: a surgeon who still runs a busy non-operative clinic sees how many problems settle without an operation, and that knowledge shapes the advice given in the room.

All three are board-certified in orthopedic surgery and fellowship-trained in the subspecialty listed with their name. Where a case sits outside those areas, they will say so and arrange the right referral rather than stretch.

What Fellowship Training Means for Your Case

Orthopedic training in the United States runs long: four years of medical school, then a five-year orthopedic surgery residency covering the whole musculoskeletal system, then an optional additional year of fellowship concentrated on one area, such as adult reconstruction, sports medicine or spine. Board certification follows, with periodic recertification and continuing education after that. FAAOS after a name indicates fellowship status with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

The practical consequence is volume. A surgeon who spent a fellowship year doing little except knee and hip reconstruction, and who has done it since, has seen far more variations of the same operation, including the ones that go differently than planned. That experience shows up less in the routine case and more in the unusual one.

• Ask any surgeon, here or elsewhere, how many of your specific procedure they perform in a year. It is a fair question and a good surgeon will answer it without hesitation.
• Ask what their threshold is for recommending the operation, and what would make them advise against it for you specifically.
• Ask who will be in the operating room, who assists, and who you will see at follow-up appointments.
• Ask what the rehabilitation actually requires from you in weeks and hours, since that effort determines the result at least as much as the surgery does.

The Wider Team Behind Every Case

Most of what determines a result happens outside the operating room and outside the consultation. These are the people who own those parts.

How a Case Gets Assigned to a Specialist

Assignment happens before you arrive, based on what you describe when you book. The aim is that the first specialist you meet is the one who can finish the job.

• Step one, screening for urgency: the scheduling team screens every request against a red-flag list, including deformity, fever with a hot joint, loss of sensation, and bladder or bowel changes with back pain. Anything on that list is redirected to emergency care immediately rather than booked.
• Step two, body region and mechanism: arthritis of a weight-bearing joint and previous joint replacements go to knee and hip reconstruction. Acute sporting injuries, instability and tendon problems go to sports medicine and arthroscopy. Pain radiating into an arm or leg, or a spinal diagnosis from elsewhere, goes to spine care.
• Step three, prior imaging review: where a scan already exists, it is reviewed before the appointment so that time in the room is spent on examination and planning rather than on reading a report together.
• Step four, the exam can override the plan: if the examination points elsewhere, the case is transferred internally. You are not asked to repeat your intake or obtain a new referral to move between our specialists.
• Step five, weekly case conference: cases that are complex, ambiguous or not improving on schedule are discussed by all three surgeons and senior therapists together, so more than one mind has looked at your imaging before a major decision is made.

When Two Specialists Share a Case

Some problems genuinely sit on a border, and the honest answer at the first visit is that it is not yet clear which structure is generating the pain. Rather than guess, the case is co-managed.

Groin and buttock pain is the classic example: hip osteoarthritis and lumbar nerve irritation can produce a very similar story, and it is not unusual for both to be present in someone over sixty. Shoulder pain that travels below the elbow raises the same question about the neck. In those cases the reconstruction or sports specialist and the spine specialist examine the same patient, and a diagnostic injection is sometimes used to identify which source is responsible before anything irreversible is planned.

• Hip versus spine: examined by both, with a targeted injection used when the clinical picture stays ambiguous.
• Shoulder versus cervical spine: nerve testing and a neck examination are part of every shoulder assessment where pain travels past the elbow.
• Post-operative care: every surgical patient is jointly managed by the operating surgeon and a physical therapist, who work from the same written protocol.
• Medical complexity: patients with diabetes, inflammatory arthritis, osteoporosis or cardiac disease are co-managed with their existing physicians, because optimizing those conditions before surgery measurably affects healing and complication risk.

Second Opinions, Continuity and What You Can Expect

Second opinions are a normal part of orthopedic care, particularly before a joint replacement or spine operation. If you are coming here for one, bring the actual images rather than just the report, the operative notes from any prior surgery, and a written list of what you were told. A second opinion that agrees with the first is still useful, because it converts a decision you were unsure about into one you can commit to.

On continuity: the surgeon who examines you is the surgeon who performs your operation. If that ever needs to change, for illness or scheduling, you will be told before the day rather than on it. A physician assistant or surgical first assistant may assist in the operating room, and that is explained as part of the consent conversation, not discovered afterward.

• You can request a specific specialist when booking, though the wait may be longer than for the next available clinician.
• You can change specialist within the practice at any point, and doing so is not treated as a complaint.
• You can ask for your imaging, notes and outcome scores to take to another practice, and they will be released without argument.
• You will get a written plan after a consultation, so what was agreed does not depend on memory.

Frequently asked questions