BUSM, BMC Orthopaedic Surgeon Receives Prestigous Award from Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation
Paul Tornetta III, MD, a professor and vice chairman in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and the Director of Orthopaedic Trauma at Boston Medical Center, is the recipient of the 2010 Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation’s (OREF) Clinical Research Award. Tornetta received the recognition for the paper, “Setting a New Benchmark for Collaborative Trials in Trauma: The Rationale, Design, and Execution of the Study to Prospectively Evaluate Intramedullary Nails in Tibial Shaft Fractures” (SPRINT). This paper also won the Bovill award for the best paper at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, an award he has won four times, including this past year for a project on pelvic ring injuries.
Tornetta will receive the award at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Orthopaedic Research Society annual meetings in New Orleans March 9-10. He is also the co-author of SPRINT, a paper outlining collaborative research studies about surgical approaches to closed and open tibial shaft fractures.
“My colleagues and I are extremely honored to receive this award from the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation,” said Tornetta, who is also the director of the Orthopaedic Residency Training program at BU. “To have this project recognized by such a distinguished organization speaks to the importance of large multicenter collaboratives and demonstrates that we can successfully answer important questions.”
Tornetta is devoted to teaching orthopaedic residents and improving the quality of patient care through research. His research interests focus on both the clinical and technical aspects of orthopaedic trauma surgery and the injured patient. His current studies involve the comparison of implants for complex knee injuries, the management and outcomes of pelvic factures, the options for managing bone defects, and many other questions in orthopaedic trauma.
A former president of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, Tornetta is on the Board of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He also chairs the Instructional Course Committee. Tornetta is a deputy editor for the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma and an editor and reviewer for the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Journal of Trauma.