AAOS News: Kevin J. Bozic Named AAOS President

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) has a new leader.

At its annual meeting last week in Las Vegas, the organization installed Texas orthopedic surgeon Kevin J. Bozic, M.D., FAAOS, as its new president for 2023–2024. The new role marks Bozic’s third year of a four-year term of volunteer service on the AAOS Board of Directors.
 
“I consider it one of the greatest privileges of my professional career to have the honor and pleasure of serving as the 91st president of the AAOS,” Bozic said in his acceptance speech. “We are living in unprecedented times in healthcare; society is looking to us as physicians to lead transformative change that will allow our health system to deliver on its promise of improving the health of the populations we are so fortunate to serve—and, in the process, create a more sustainable system that allows us to focus on improving the lives of our patients, thus bringing joy back into our practices.”
 
Bozic is the inaugural chair of surgery and perioperative care at the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. He is an internationally recognized leader in orthopedic surgery and value-based healthcare payment and delivery models. Since movng to Austin, he has built a department with more than 250 faculty across a broad array of surgical disciplines, all focused on the Dell Med mission of revolutionizing the way people get and stay healthy by developing new models of person-centered, multidisciplinary care that reward value; and educating leaders who will transform healthcare.
 
Prior to joining the Dell Med, he was the William R. Murray Endowed Professor and vice chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine and core faculty of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. He earned a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from Duke University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and a medical degree with thesis from UCSF. He completed his orthopedic surgery residency training in the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, and additional fellowship training in adult reconstructive surgery from Rush University Medical College. Bozic also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he continues to serve as a senior institute associate in Professor Michael Porter’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness.
 
Bozic’s clinical practice is focused on managing patients with hip and knee arthritis and painful hip and knee arthroplasties. He has more than 20 years of experience as an adult reconstructive surgeon performing simple and complex primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty.
 
“Throughout my career, I have dedicated myself to advocating for changes to the health system that make it easier for orthopaedic surgeons to focus on the aspects of the job that we enjoy the most—improving the lives of our patients—rather than the inherent, crushing administrative burden and misaligned incentives of our current health system, which contribute to physician burnout,” Bozic added. “As president of the AAOS, I look forward to working with our Board of Directors, our staff, and our many physician volunteers to build on the AAOS’ reputation as a leader in health system transformation that aligns our incentives with those of our patients. Because when our goals, responsibilities, professional duties and incentives are aligned with those of our patients, everyone wins.”
 
Bozic has extensive research and policy experience in the field of value-based healthcare, centered on implementation and evaluation of value-based payment and delivery models. His research has been funded by the Agency for Health Care Research & Quality, the National Institutes for Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF). He is actively involved in numerous regional and national health policy initiatives, including the Health Care Payment Learning Action Network and the Yale Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation Performance Measurement Group. He is the co-founder and former chair of the California Joint Replacement Registry, past chair of the American Joint Replacement Registry, and a former member of the Agency for Health Care Research & Quality Effective Health Care Stakeholder Group. Among his many AAOS volunteer positions, Bozic  previously served as a member-at-large on the AAOS Board of Directors and chaired both the Research and Quality Council and the AAOS Health Care Systems Committee.

Bozic has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the UCSF Exceptional Physician of the Year Award; the OREF Clinical Research Award; the American Bone & Joint Surgeons Marshall Urist Young Investigator Award; the American Association of Hip & Knee Surgeons James A. Rand Young Investigator Award and Lawrence D. Dorr Award; the American Orthopaedic Association American-British-Canadian Exchange and North American Traveling Fellowships; the Orthopaedic Research Society William Harris Award; the Hip Society John Charnley Award; and the Knee Society Chitranjan Ranawat Award.

Bozic lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Christi, and daughters Ava, Alexa and Alanna.

With more than 39,000 members, AAOS  is the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists. The organization 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.