AAOS Governance Principles

AAOS Governance Goals:  Engagement, Leadership, and Efficiency
Academy governance, principally through (or starting with) the Board, shall meaningfully engage the membership, effectively lead the Academy, and do both with efficiency and excellence.  

AAOS Governance Principles

  1. Members are the Academy’s primary stakeholders and are essential to achieving the Academy’s mission to serve the profession in its provision of the highest quality musculoskeletal care for patients. 

  2. The Academy represents and supports its members, all orthopaedic surgeons, and the orthopaedic care team through education, advocacy, membership, communication and quality resources and tools.

  3. Governance shall be strategic in support of the Academy’s mission.

  4. The Academy shall function through centralized authority with ultimate authority at the Board level. Decentralized, flexible decision making will proceed through Board designated committees and other entities with oversight of the Board.

  5. Governance shall be clear and transparent to the membership and codified in succinct Bylaws approved by the membership and robust policies approved by the Board.*

  6. Governance structures and policies shall be reasonably simple, nimble and flexible to ensure the Academy anticipates and addresses proactive changes in the environment and the development of new strategic opportunities.

  7. Board composition shall be a hybrid model of representative and competency based director(s) selection, constituted of Fellows and up to two competency-based lay persons. Board size will be a maximum of 19.*

  8. The Board and other Academy member structures should pursue as a priority diversity in its member composition, including gender, race, ethnicity, specialty, age, geography and thought.

  9. The Nominating Committee shall seek and consider input from the Board on qualities and competencies needed in order to identify individual nominees consistent with Academy Principles. The Nominating Committee deliberations as well as the selection process shall be uniform, and the process transparent to the Fellowship.

 

Adopted September 14, 2018. Revised December 4, 2021.