The Bonehead Podcast

Welcome back listeners! The ninth episode of our Conversations series features a generational leader, Dr. Alexander Vaccaro, an orthopedic spine surgeon, President of the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, the Richard H. Rothman Professor and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In this episode, he reflects on the values instilled in him by...

Welcome back listeners! The eighth episode of our Conversations series features a lineup of exceptional orthopaedic applicants who recently matched into some of the top institutions nationwide. Many of our dear friends enjoyed great success in the 2025 match cycle and we wanted to share their insights with you. We hope that our listeners are able to benefit from learning about our panelists’ uniqu...

Welcome back listeners! The seventh episode of our Conversations series features an exceptionally strong orthopedic resident at Hospital for Special Surgery, Dr. Joshua Bram. Josh is a PGY-4 who is planning to pursue an academic career in pediatric orthopaedics. He is very active in research, leading several projects that are pushing the boundaries of innovation forward, not to mention serving as...

Welcome back listeners! In this Conversations episode of The Bonehead Podcast, we interview two stellar medical students who are currently on their orthopedic surgery research years between their third and fourth years of medical school. We are joined by a friend of the show, Ms. Olivia Tracey, a fellow Downstate student who is currently a Leon Root Research Fellow in the Department of Pediatric O...

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 Orthopaedi...

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 in...

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 per...

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 i...

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 Or...

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. The...

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 Jo...

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...

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...

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 poin...