Specialty Spotlight: Orthopedics
Tags: Health, Medicine, Students, Orthopedics, Doctors

by Megan R.

If you’ve ever broken a bone or strained a muscle, you have more than likely have interacted with an orthopedic surgeon. Orthopedics is the specialty of medicine that focuses on the musculoskeletal system. Physicians in this specialty are experts on diseases and injuries that affect the muscles and bones, with many often further specializing in specific body parts or types of injury. Through surgical and non-surgical intervention, they treat patients for a wide variety of conditions. Many orthopedic conditions are more a matter of quality of life rather than life-threatening, a unique quality of orthopedics compared to other surgical specialties.

The Path to Becoming an Orthopedist

Like other doctors, orthopedic surgeons, also called orthopedists, complete a bachelor’s degree followed by a four-year medical degree (MD or DO). After medical school, they continue on to a four to five-year orthopedic residency in a hospital. Many choose to further subspecialize by completing a one to two-year fellowship. Some subspecialties you might be familiar with are pediatric orthopedics, orthopedic trauma, and sports medicine. Orthopedists can practice in a variety of settings depending on subspecialty. They can vary in both in-patient vs. out-patient settings and private practice vs. hospital settings.

Life as an Orthopedist

While the best way to learn about a specialty is to shadow or observe, speaking with doctors practicing in specialties you might be interested in can provide honest and unique insight. The following physicians were kind enough to give their input regarding their experience as orthopedic surgeons.

Dr. Francesca Swartz, DO

Orthopedics, Sports Medicine

Dr. Zachary Stone, MD

Orthopedics, Joint Replacement/Revision

What made you choose orthopedics? Your subspecialty?

FS: “My mother had difficulty walking from birth. She had multiple ankle surgeries and walked with a cane, so I initially wanted to help my mom walk better. Then, as I grew up and played sports, I developed an alternate interest in keeping athletes on the field. I honestly never considered anything other than orthopedics.”

“I did a sports medicine fellowship because I feel inclined to maintain athletes’ ability to compete. From the casual golfer and pickleball player to the high-end elite athletes, being able to maintain a high level of competition is important for everybody. Plus, I love scoping stuff. Arthroscopic surgery is very fun.”

ZS: “I think that’s a tough question. I didn’t know at first. I almost did urology but ended up in orthopedics. I like it because we can basically do surgery all over the body. From knees to hips to shoulders, there’s lots of opportunity for variety. It’s also a unique opportunity to be an expert in something not a lot of other people know about. Not many other doctors know a lot about the musculoskeletal system. They mostly just have a superficial knowledge of it so it’s nice to be THE expert.”

“I subspecialized in joint replacement, primarily hip and knee and I do a lot of revision and redoing replacements and dealing with associated complications like infections. Choosing that was more based on my mentors. You kinda find people you can associate with and have a lot in common with that shape what you do because you look up to them and want to do what they do. Joint surgery also offers immediate gratification. Patients can come in and have destroyed joints and after their replacement, they have function almost immediately. I like that a lot compared something like nerve or muscle surgery where you won’t know if it works for another two months as opposed to two days.”

What is one thing you wish you knew about the specialty before becoming an orthopedist?

ZS: “A lot of people give orthopedists a hard time about it being a simple field. I don’t think you understand how complex it is and how many little nuances there are until you’re really involved in it. I don’t think I appreciated the complexity of the field as a med student.”

What advice do you have for pre-med students who are interested in orthopedics?

FS: “ Study hard and spend time at the place you want to do your residency because a lot of orthopedic programs just want to make sure you’re a normal person who can interact appropriately and function well with others. Within the residency, they can teach you the medicine side but they can’t teach you to be a decent person.”

ZS: “It’s good to determine first is if you like medical type stuff or if you like surgery. You can figure this out early on or during clinical rotations but that’s a good place to start.

Orthopedics was and is incredibly competitive so I’d say focus on getting good grades and test scores and find a way to be unique, whether through research or involvement in the orthopedics dept at your med school. Orthopedics is like a team sport. In residency, your co-residents are your teammates so you have to be a team player and you should show that as a med student. Your fourth-year clinical rotations are like tryouts for residency and are really important to show you can fit in well with the team so you need to shine on away rotations on top of the obvious factors like grades and test scores. At the end of the day, so many people look the same on paper. Do as many away rotations at places you’re interested in to make yourself stand out.

Any other closing remarks or words of wisdom?

FS: “Make sure you find a specialty that you really like because you’re going to be doing the same job for a very long time and will need to be passionate about it. Don’t go for money, the money will come if you enjoy it.”

ZS: “You really have to be into what you’re doing otherwise you won’t make it. There are plenty of people who started thinking they were going to do one thing and end up doing something else so don’t feel so locked in with a specialty. You can start one thing and change later on if you don’t like it. It may be harder but you can always do it.

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