About the Department

The Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation was founded in 1962 by J. William Hillman, M.D., the department's first chairman. Prior to that time, it was a section of the General Surgery Department of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Following Dr. Hillman's death in 1970, Paul P. Griffin, M.D. chaired the Department for the succeeding decade.  Arthur Brooks, M.D. carried forth the spirit of Dr. Hillman and began a tradition of teaching and impassioned patient care until he was followed by Dan M. Spengler, M.D. in 1984.  Dr Spengler chaired the department until 2009.

Dr. Herbert S. Schwartz became Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation in 2009. There are currently 35 full-time orthopaedic, attending faculty positions and six auxiliary faculty positions in the department, 25 resident positions and eight orthopaedic fellowship positions. Ten orthopaedic surgeons from the Nashville area serve on the clinical faculty. Forty-five therapist providers complement the clinical enterprise in which approximately 110,000 outpatient visits are recorded and 12,000 surgical cases are performed annually. 

Faculty

A dedicated group of clinician scientist educators comprise the faculty.  These accomplished physicians span all nine surgical disciplines of orthopaedic surgery.  Few medical centers contain all subspecialty divisions and fewer medical centers, or large private groups of orthopaedic surgeons, internally refer such that patients are taken care of by the experts of their disease. True sub-specialization is rare, but represents the best patient care model.  Expert patient care drives our department.  The faculty however is quite diverse in their age and talents.  Some faculty concentrate on clinical outcomes medicine while others spend time on translational applications of laboratory bench research.  Many faculty devote their time to teaching and others to obtaining additional degrees in public health or administration.  In common they share a commitment to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s tradition of inquiry and a collegial pursuit to learn more, help as many people as possible and educate the future leaders of medicine.   

Two faculty members have served as president of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and others have served as presidents of national organizations including: The Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, The Orthopaedic Trauma Association, The Pediatric Orthopaedic Society and American Orthopaedic Association.  All faculty play active roles in the continuing medical education of their peers in the United States and abroad.

The residency program consists of four years of specialized orthopaedic education preceded by a one-year internship in general surgery, spent in the Department of Surgery at Vanderbilt.  During the orthopaedic residency program, residents rotate through the main Vanderbilt teaching hospital staffed by full-time faculty for all but three rotations. The program is a strong component of the Department.  It is founded on four basic tenets. One, the rotations are education – not service based.  Two, every resident shares the same rotations and educational experience. Three, Vanderbilt Orthopaedics operates on a classical apprenticeship rotation model in which specialty specific faculty and residents follow each other throughout the rotation. Fourth, educational conferences are held each morning for the benefit of the residents and medical students.  The conferences range from didactic lectures to grand rounds and morbidity & mortality presentations.

The Vanderbilt University Hospital complex is a tertiary referral center for the Mid-South area with approximately 800 beds and a brand new operating room and intensive care tower.  Three thousand orthopaedic patients are admitted annually to Vanderbilt University Hospital. Orthopaedic Surgery at Vanderbilt has an average daily hospital census of 40 inpatients and we perform approximately 50 surgical cases each day. Approximately 5,000 patients are seen annually by the Orthopaedic Service in the emergency room.

The Veterans Administration Medical Center, adjacent to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has 485 beds (including 439 acute care beds) and an active ambulatory care clinic treating 3,502 orthopaedic outpatients annually. About 381 orthopaedic procedures are performed yearly while 286 orthopaedic patients are admitted to VAMC each year. It is located on the Vanderbilt campus. One junior and senior resident with two full time auxiliary faculty staff the VAMC at all times.  One senior resident and one auxiliary faculty staff  Meharry Medical Center which is five miles away from Vanderbilt.

Statement of Goals

The Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Vanderbilt University is committed to:

• Clinical Care:

We serve patients with the highest degree of competence in currently recommended surgical techniques within each orthopaedic subspecialty.  We do our very best caring for each person, every time.

• Education:

We teach medical students, residents, fellows, faculty, physicians pursuing continuing medical education,     and all members of the health care team in the anatomy and pathophysiology of the musculoskeletal system. The decision analysis upon which therapeutic intervention is based remains an art that relies upon: a caring patient-doctor relationship, knowledge of science and evidence based medicine, surgical skill, experience and the ability to ask and answer questions.
 
Readying the next generation of orthopaedic surgeons via educating resident physicians requires them to have a broad educational background that prepares them for any general orthopaedic practice or academic practice while at the same time developing a spirit of inquiry conducive to self-education over a professional lifetime.

• Research:

Fostering new knowledge by developing a leading presence in orthopaedic research across the basic, translational, clinical, and outcomes continuum, engaging medical students, residents, fellows, and staff in faculty-led inquiry is our goal.  It is our strong belief that it is the thoughtful clinician that asks the most fundamental questions of science, stimulating the translation of leading edge lab discoveries into therapies beneficial to patients.