Thomas W. Wright, MD (Fellowship Director)
Michael Moser, MD
Kevin Farmer, MD
Ryan Roach, MD
Jay King, MD
Jonathan Wright, MD
Matthew Patrick, MD
University of Florida
Beth Keene, PO Box 112727 (Mailing Address)
Gainesville, FL 32611-2727
Phone: 352-273-7374 Fax: 352-273-7388 E-mail: keeneb@ortho.ufl.edu
Duration: 1 academic year beginning on August 1
Rotation: 1 rotation: Monday and Tuesday-outpatient Sports Medicine Shoulder Service; Wednesday thru Friday-Shoulder and Elbow Service – arthroplasty, inpatient upper extremity trauma
Number of Fellows: 1 Fellow per year
Fellowship Description:
The University of Florida Shoulder and Elbow fellowship is located in Gainesville, Florida. It is designed to offer one fellow per year a comprehensive exposure to all aspects of shoulder and elbow surgery. The fellow will rotate with 6 full time fellowship trained faculty (4 ASES members) all who have a high volume of shoulder and elbow cases. Dr. Wright has a large practice divided between shoulder and elbow arthroplasty surgery, and arthroscopy. Dr. Farmer’s, Dr. Moser’s and Dr. Roach’s practices involve sports medicine and arthroscopic surgery of the shoulder and elbow and are responsible for the care of the University of Florida (Gators) athletic teams. Dr. King interacts with the fellow on Fridays and his focus is on complex arthroscopic and reconstructive shoulder surgery. He is also heavily involved with the fellow’s research. Dr. Jon Wright (no relations to T. Wright) is the newest member of the Division and will work with the fellows on Fridays focusing on complex elbow reconstruction. The fellow is actively involved in all aspects of the patient’s care from evaluation and decision making to the actual surgical procedure. This is a surgical hands on fellowship not an observational one. With 4 shoulder and elbow trained faculty members in the Division and one in the trauma Division (Mathew Patrick) the fellow will have some flexibility to focus on aspects of shoulder and elbow surgery that fit their particular needs.
The University of Florida is Level I Trauma and Burn Center. The fellow will treat complex elbow and shoulder trauma generated by these centers both in the acute phases and delayed reconstruction. Drs. T. Wright, King, and J. Wright perform inpatient shoulder and elbow surgery. In addition, Dr. Patrick has performed fellowships in both trauma and shoulder and elbow so the opportunity exists to spend additional time in trauma if the fellow desires. The fellowship is educationally oriented and has no mandatory night call.
Didactic conferences include preoperative conference every Thursday afternoon, one conference a month performed for the entire Department Monday am and a conference every Tuesday am. In the Thursday preoperative conferences, the fellow will perform virtual surgery that will be used in the upcoming week using the new GPS computer guided system to assist intraoperatively with shoulder arthroplasty surgery. In addition, one Tuesday pm is dedicated to fellow’s research and two Wednesday mornings to covering the entire shoulder and elbow curriculum.
The fellow is expected to write a research paper of publishable quality during their time at the University of Florida. Research facilities available to the fellow and housed directly in the Department of Orthopaedics include a biomechanics lab, motion analysis lab, gene therapy lab, stem cell research lab, and a surgical skills lab. We also have a two full time clinical research coordinators responsible for the Divisions research and a shoulder arthroplasty database with 2500 patients dating back to the 1990s. We also have access to an international database of shoulder arthroplasties with 12,000 patients enrolled. We anticipate that the fellow will have 10% of the work week assigned for research and educational purposes. The fellowship will sponsor travel to one national and one regional meeting per year. The Department also supports travel for research presentations from the fellow’s graduate work at UF.
Unique aspects of this program include a high ratio of shoulder and elbow fellowship trained faculty to fellow which gives the trainee a moderate amount of flexibility with the ability to focus more or less on sports medicine or shoulder arthroplasty and trauma.
Thomas W. Wright MD
Frank Glowczewskie Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Division Head Shoulder to Hand Division
Director Shoulder and Elbow Fellowship
University of Florida
Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation
UF Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Institute
3450 Hull Road, 3rdFloor, RM 3341
Gainesville, FL 32607