Paul Tornetta III, MD, PhD, Named 92nd President of AAOS

AAOS announced Boston orthopaedic trauma surgeon Paul Tornetta III, MD, PhD, FAAOS, as its new president for 2024–2025. Dr. Tornetta takes this top leadership role in his third year of a 4-year term of volunteer service on the Board of Directors. He assumed the position following the AAOS 2024 Annual Meeting.

Dr. Tornetta serves as the director of orthopaedic trauma at Boston Medical Center as well as professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine of Boston University. He describes himself as a “blue-collar surgeon” who takes pride in promoting a shared decision-making model with patients and fostering lifelong professional learning for surgeons.

Dr. Tornetta is a highly respected professor known for his passion for teaching and efforts to advance orthopaedic education, training, and surgical techniques. His reputation for fairness and transparency has earned him numerous recognitions. At Boston University, orthopaedic residents selected him four times to receive the annual Robert E. Leach, MD, Resident Teacher of the Year Award. He has earned distinction as a Castle Connolly Top Doctor every year since 1999 and a Boston Magazine Top Doc since 2006. He is past president of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association and served on the executive committee of the American Orthopaedic Association for more than a decade.

Among his many AAOS volunteer positions, he previously served as a member-at-large on the Board of Directors, chaired the Education Council for 4 years, and was past chair of the Annual Meeting Committee and former Evaluations Committee. In 2022, his leadership in the collaboration among AAOS, the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, the Council of Orthopaedic Residency Directors, and the AAOS Resident Assembly was instrumental in launching the AAOS Resident Orthopaedic Core Knowledge (ROCK) curriculum.

Dr. Tornetta has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and leads the Orthopaedic Trauma Research Consortium. The consortium focuses on large-scale studies to improve surgical best practices for some of the most common musculoskeletal diseases. He has been a steering committee member for trials that were recognized with the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation Clinical Research Award (2010) and the AAOS Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award (2020, 2023). He is also the recipient of multiple Bovill Awards, given to the top paper at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association annual meeting.

Dr. Tornetta earned his medical degree and completed his internship and orthopaedic residency training at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, New York. After a fellowship at Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, he was appointed director of orthopaedic trauma at Kings County Hospital Center and the University Hospital of Brooklyn before moving to Boston Medical Center.