What’s New at the
Naval Medical Center Portsmouth?

By Luke Balsamo, MD
Program Director
Department of Orthopaedics

The orthopaedic residency at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth continues to successfully train new orthopaedic surgeons to meet the challenge of a military practice. We would like to welcome our new PGY-2 residents. Drs. Feaker, Hall, and Van Nielen completed a categorical internship at NMCP and moved right into residency. Our new chiefs, Drs. Needham, Pinkos, and Stepanovich have stepped up to assume greater roles of responsibility. Our program received good news after this year's boards cycle. All passed! This makes 17 years of a 100% ABOS Part I and 19 years of a 100% ABOS Part II pass rate. Congratulations to our residents.

Research continues to be an important part of our program. Currently there are over 30 IRB approved projects with over $300,000 of command funding and grants. In 2012, the department authored over 20 articles and book chapters and we are on pace to do the same in 2013.

We are one of the busiest orthopaedic departments in DoD, seeing over 80,000 outpatient visits a year and performing over 5,000 surgeries. We couldn’t do this without our dedicated civilian and military support staff and the hard work of our residents.  We look forward to a robust presence at the 2013 VOS meeting in Roanoke, VA.