AAOS News: Annunziato (Ned) Amendola Named Second Vice-President

North Carolina orthopedic surgeon Annunziato (Ned) Amendola, M.D., FAAOS, FRCSC, DABOS, division chief for sports medicine at Duke University, is now second vice president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) Board of Directors. His role is the first in a four-year term of volunteer service, during which he will serve as AAOS president from 2025–2026. 
 
Amendola has led Duke’s sports medicine program since 2015 and was named executive director of the James R. Urbaniak, M.D., Sports Sciences Institute in Durham, N.C., in 2018. The Virginia Baker Flowers Distinguished Professor, Amendola also was the head team physician and chief medical officer for Duke Athletics and was an orthopedic specialist in charge of the 2022 NBA Draft Combine.
 
Improving Patient Care Through Research
Internationally recognized for his research and clinical leadership, Amendola has helped improve orthopedic care quality throughout the world and influenced the career paths of hundreds of orthopedic surgeons. Amendola is a prolific physician-scientist who has significantly impacted the sports medicine field. He helped to develop arthroscopic and biologic cartilage replacement and repair techniques for ankle and knee injuries. These techniques formed the basis of these procedures and led to further refinements in the technologies, techniques, and devices involved over the years.
 
Amendola has received numerous peer-reviewed grants and published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles throughout his career. He has won several orthopedic research awards, including the Excellence in Research Award, the Cabaud Memorial Award, and the O’Donoghue Award. In addition, he received the Achilles Award from the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine (ISAKOS); the Roger Mann Award and the Leonard Goldner Award from the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society; and the Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award from the AAOS.
 
Leading Through Service
With more than 27 years of service to the AAOS, Amendola has long been involved in collaborative orthopedic organizations that focus on patient and physician advocacy and care quality improvement.
 
He is the past president of the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine and the Herodicus Orthopaedic Society. He formerly served on the Board of Directors of the AAOS, ISAKOS, and the Arthroscopy Association of North America. He was also deputy editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
 
Amendola began his career in Canada and is the past president of the Canadian Academy of Sports Medicine and a Diplomate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. He earned his medical degree and completed his orthopedic residency at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. He completed post-graduate fellowships in orthopedic sports medicine, foot and ankle surgery, and hand surgery. He was on faculty at Western Ontario until 2001, when he was recruited to be the director of sports medicine at the University of Iowa, where he held the Kim and John Callaghan Endowed Chair in Sports Medicine. He left for Duke University in 2015.
 
With more than 39,000 members, AAOS is the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists. It provides comprehensive education to help orthopedic surgeons and allied health professionals best treat patients in their daily practices. The AAOS is the source for information on bone and joint conditions, treatments and related musculoskeletal healthcare issues; and it leads the healthcare discussion on advancing quality.