Welcome back listeners! The fifth episode of our Conversations series features an inspiring guest, Dr. Paul Cagle, a shoulder and elbow orthopedic surgeon and Associate Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also the Associate Program Director of their orthopedic residency program. This conversation is a full-circle moment for our co-host Patrick, as Dr. Cagle played an instrumental role in influencing him to pursue a career in orthopedics after a summer of shadowing. In this episode, Dr. Cagle walks us through his unique training path that included a traveling fellows ..read more

Welcome back listeners! In the first episode of The Bonehead Podcast in 2024, we discuss a fascinating paper looking at the emergence of private equity (PE) in the space of orthopaedic surgery. We mainly cover a comprehensive review article in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS) by Dr. Alpesh Patel and his team, titled “Private Equity and Its Emergence in Orthopaedics,” with contributions from several other articles on the topic. In summary, we touch on what private equity is, its model in orthopaedics compared to other specialties, its appeal on both sides of t ..read more

Welcome back listeners! The third episode of our Conversations series features a very exciting guest, Dr. Saad Chaudhary, an orthopedic spine surgeon and Associate Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also the Associate Program Director of the Spine Surgery Fellowship there. In this episode, he takes a deep dive into orthopedic spine training, developments in minimally invasive techniques, and key characteristics in ambitious medical students valued by program directors. Tune in to hear more about not only his journey towards becoming a renowned orthopedic surgeon, b ..read more

Welcome back listeners! The fourth episode of our Conversations series features a very special guest, Dr. Qais Naziri, an adult reconstruction surgeon and Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. Dr. Naziri also serves as the Associate Program Director at Downstate’s orthopedic surgery residency program. In this episode, he touches on the grit and perseverance in his own journey, a genuine love for orthopedics as the defining measure of "fit", and the importance of striving for excellence everyday. We certainly were inspired by our dialogue with D ..read more

Welcome back listeners, especially medical students! We are delighted to finally launch our new Conversations series. In our introductory episode, we welcome our first ever guests, Dr. Jad Bou Monsef, an orthopedic spine surgeon at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and One Brooklyn Health, and Dr. Ernest J. Barthélemy, Chief of Neurosurgery at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. These exceptional surgeons and even better mentors discuss their developing collaboration between orthopedics and neurosurgery, their respective training paths and specialties, and conclude with valuable ..read more

Welcome back listeners! The second episode of our Conversations series features a very special guest, Dr. Christen Russo, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at Columbia University. Dr. Russo is a big proponent of supporting women pursuing a career in orthopedic surgery. She is the President-Elect of the Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society, an organization that supports this exact mission. An incredible role model to many, she shares insight into her unique path in medicine, offers salient advice for medical students ..read more

Welcome back listeners and all sports fans! In the third episode of The Bonehead Podcast, we discuss an exciting new study in the field of orthopedic sports medicine. This investigation generated four machine learning algorithms and compared their ability to predict the risk of lower extremity muscle strains to traditional logistic regression. This level III case control study by Dr. Yining Lu et al. from Mayo Clinic in Minnesota is titled “Machine Learning for Predicting Lower Extremity Muscle Strain in National Basketball Association Athletes” and was published in the Orthopaedic Journal of ..read more

Welcome back listeners! In this episode of The Bonehead Podcast, we discuss a hot-off-the-press paper about the Medical Student Orthopedic Society, or MSOS. This level V survey study by Theodore Quan and the MSOS team is titled “The Impact of a Virtual Orthopaedic Surgery Symposium on Medical Students: Increasing Awareness and Knowledge of the Field” and was published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in November 2022. This study explored the impact of their inaugural medical student-run virtual symposium on student interest and knowledge about orthopedic surgery. They found an increase ..read more

Welcome back listeners! In the second episode of The Bonehead Podcast, we break down a study that discusses a novel surgical technique called Anterior Vertebral Body Tethering (AVBT), which is an alternative treatment modality compared to the traditional Posterior Spinal Fusion (PSF) for Progressive Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis. This retrospective cohort study titled “Trunk Range of Motion and Patient Outcomes After Anterior Vertebral Body Tethering Versus Posterior Spinal Fusion” was published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in September 2022. Here, we discuss the paper’s key find ..read more

Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Bonehead Podcast, where we break down a randomized controlled trial paper titled “Effect of Intrawound Vancomycin Powder in Operatively Treated High-risk Tibia Fractures” published in the journal JAMA Surgery in March 2021. Here, we provide a ten-minute summary of the key findings and clinical correlations, as well as introduce some valuable educational points for our medical student listeners, such as the importance of randomization and blinding ..read more