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Focus on Rick Wright, MD

Rick W. Wright, MD, is professor of orthopedic surgery. His specialties include sports medicine and orthopedic surgery. Dr. Wright sees patients at the Orthopedic Surgery Center located in the Center for Advanced Medicine, 4921 Parkview Place, Suite 6A and Washington University Orthopedics, 14532 South Outer Forty Road, Chesterfield, MO.

FOR AN APPOINTMENT, PLEASE CALL 314 747-2500 (4921 Parkview Place) or 314 514-3500 (14532 S. Outer Forty Rd.)

What happened in the course of schooling to make you choose your specialty?
Orthopedics appealed to me because I was always a sports fan. I was drawn to the medical articles about the care of athletes, especially in the St. Louis area – back when Dr. Jerome Gilden, from Washington University, was the team physician for the St. Louis Blues. I found out I liked surgery after I did my surgical rotation in medical school. I fell in love with orthopedics, and never looked back. I can’t imagine doing anything else in medicine.

What brought you to Washington University?
I was recruited by Dr. Jerome Gilden when he was Chief of Orthopedics at Jewish Hospital just prior to the merger. I was fortunate to secure this position because I had decided late in my orthopedic sports medicine fellowship to pursue an academic position.


Which aspect of your practice do you find most interesting?
There’s not any one single aspect of my practice that I find more interesting than the others. I like the diversity that sports medicine offers. I am able to treat active individuals in different situations with a variety of conditions – shoulder, knee, foot, ankle, and elbow injuries.

I truly value the variety that my faculty position at Washington University offers. I enjoy participating in the three domains that are offered in this position with research, resident and medical student education and clinical practice. I’m the residency director and I think that I was probably put on earth to teach residents how to do arthroscopy.

Most people expect me to say that being the team doctor for the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Blues is the most interesting aspect of my practice, and I would agree that many times the care of professional athletes offers unique clinical situations and challenges. I’m also a fan, so being able to help the athletes stay healthy and help the local teams win is fun.Winning a Super Bowl ring with the Rams in 1999 was very exciting.

At the end of the day, there’s not any one part of what I do that I would be willing to give up.

What new developments in your field are you most excited about?
There are two things in my field that I am most excited about. First of all, I am involved in research on ACL revision reconstruction that I think will really change our orthopedic sports medicine practice. Washington University School of Medicine is one of the coordinating centers and we are one of the lead investigators on the MARS multi-center ACL revision study – currently 77 surgeons in 40 sites.

Even a busy sports surgeon only does 10 or 15 revisions a year. Revision reconstruction is necessary after an athlete tears their ACL and they have it replaced, but then they go on to tear their reconstruction – this happens about 5-10% of the time. The outcomes are not as good for second or third revisions as the original procedure. We really don’t know why.

It’s really exciting to finally be able to assemble enough patients to ask and answer the right questions to figure out why ACL revision reconstruction (which is a fairly uncommon surgery) is often less successful than the primary reconstruction.

Secondly, I believe cartilage research will result in some very exciting clinical solutions for arthritis or cartilage loss. I think that over the next five to ten years we’re going to come up with some techniques to improve cartilage replacement that could really revolutionize the care of knee injuries. While I don’t think it’s going to happen this year, I do believe that before I retire we will discover new ways to replace articular cartilage.

Where are you from?
My wife and I are both from Sikeston, MO.

You probably don’t have much free time, but what do you do when you’re not working?
I enjoy hunting, fishing and attending my son’s sporting events. I also like to exercise.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I received is when I was a fourth year resident at Vanderbilt University. My chairman advised me to consider an academic career -- that ended up being a perfect choice for me. The fact that he thought I could do this and be successful really impacted my thought process.

Is there a particular lifestyle change that could most benefit our health?
Stop smoking. Start exercising. These are the two things that would benefit most people. Even doing simple exercise, like walking 30 minutes a day, five or six days a week makes a difference. You don’t need special equipment, you don’t need to be in great shape to start and you don’t have to have a gym membership. Walking is something most people can do – even if you have arthritis. You just need a pair of tennis shoes.

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Copyright 2013 Washington University School of Medicine