JOINTBOSS
Ortho
For program directors · Adult reconstruction fellowship
Aaron S. Vaslow, MD. Board-certified. Army staff. USUHS educator. Engineer. Separating in 2028 and looking for a dedicated adult reconstruction year — complex primary and revision — not a tourist rotation through primary THA.
About
I went into this job because a well-done hip or knee can give someone their life back in a way most of orthopaedics cannot. Not a long, uncertain rehab. Not a heroic story. A person who can stand, work, pick up a child, and stop organizing their day around a joint.
That is what I care about. The protocol exists so the result is reproducible when the room is tired and the case is not a textbook. I learned that waiting in a bunker at Al-Asad, then on a limited-resource staff year in Korea, then running a section at A.T. Augusta. Preparation is how you take care of people when improvising would feel more dramatic and help them less.
I also care who is standing next to me. Teaching Walter Reed residents, family medicine, PA students, and USUHS medical students is not a side job. If I leave a junior better than I found them, the next patient is safer whether I am in the room or not.
I am leaving the Army in 2028 with a generalist toolkit I am proud of. I am applying for a reconstruction year because I want to be the person other surgeons call when the first operation did not hold — infection, failed reconstruction, the knee that does not match the diagram. That is the care I want to spend the next twenty years on.
The case for the file
This is not a chief-resident gap year. He has run lists, call, and a section. Deputy Chief of Orthopedics and Podiatry at A.T. Augusta. Locums in civilian houses when the Army list is thin. He knows how a room actually moves.
Associate Professor, USUHS. Precepts Walter Reed ortho residents, family medicine, and PA students. Academic Chief at Tripler when the program sat above the 90th percentile on the OITE. He will carry juniors instead of competing with them.
Mechanical engineer, Rose-Hulman. He writes exposures, fences, and phenotype-to-gap logic before the case. Fellowship should add revision volume and the tools he does not own yet — not teach him how to think in sequence.
What he is asking for
Primary hip and knee, arthroscopy, and trauma are already in the toolkit. The fellowship year is for the cases other orthopaedists hand off: failed reconstruction, infection, the knee whose envelope is not a textbook Type I.
He is not applying to hide from general ortho. He is applying because the job he wants after 2028 is to be the person those cases come to — mixed academic and private, teaching residents, taking the hard list.
Preparation is the operating system. Al-Asad with an FRSD, limited-resource staff year in Korea, then a deliberate move into teaching. The through-line is the same: name the sequence before the incision.
Work product
A public phenotype calculator: CPAK and which bone owns the deformity, target gap family, insert class, fences, and what prior ACL/PCL/collateral work does to trust in that envelope. Written for residents and attendings. Brand- and robot-agnostic on purpose.
Open the calculatorFor the program
Applications and letters go through the usual channels. This page is the short version of the file: staff, teacher, engineer, separating 2028, looking for a reconstruction year that is actually reconstruction.
[email protected] How he plans a kneeLegal
This website is a personal professional page for fellowship inquiry. It is not a medical practice portal, not a hospital site, and not an invitation for patients to seek or receive care here.
No doctor–patient relationship is created by visiting these pages, emailing the address below, or using the calculator. Email is not a secure or confidential medium and is not for clinical questions, emergencies, or PHI.
The calculator is an educational sketch for surgeons. It is not an implant IFU, not a robot IFU, not a standard of care, and not a substitute for the operating surgeon’s judgment, the implant manufacturer’s labeling, or the institution’s privileges and protocols. Target gaps, fences, and insert classes are heuristics. They can be wrong for a given knee. The user alone is responsible for operative decisions.
No warranty. Content is provided as-is, may contain errors, and may change without notice. Aaron S. Vaslow, MD, Joint Boss Ortho, and any affiliated institution accept no liability for injury, revision, economic loss, or other damages alleged to arise from use or misuse of this site. If you disagree, do not use the calculator and do not rely on this page.
Views are the author’s and do not represent the U.S. Army, Defense Health Agency, USUHS, or any hospital where he holds privileges.