Dr. Matthew R. Schmitz recently joined the faculty at Rady Children’s Department of Orthopaedics as a Clinical Professor of Orthopaedics with UC San Diego, having retired after 20 years of military service in the US Air Force. He was selected to the rank of Colonel and previously served as the Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at San Antonio Military Medical Center. He also led the Pediatric Orthopaedics/Adolescent Sports Medicine Service and established the Department of Defense’s first Young Adult Hip Preservation Service. Dr. Schmitz graduated with honors from the US Air Force Academy and Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and was the recipient of Loyola’s Early Career Achievement Award. Dr. Schmitz was a standout collegiate rugby player and played with the USA National Rugby Team while in medical school. He is now is now a team physician for USA Rugby and travelled with the team for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England.
Dr. Schmitz deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and has an extensive academic medical background lecturing nationally and internationally on a variety of topics, with his main research area being hip disease and sports injuries in children and young adults. He is a member of numerous multicenter research consortiums and his clinical practice focuses on both open and arthroscopic hip preservation techniques including hip arthroscopy and periacetabular osteotomies along with adolescent sports and pediatric trauma.
Dr. Schmitz is a founding member of the International Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance, and currently serves as President of IODA. He also serves on multiple national committees for POSNA, AAOS, PRiSM, and AOA. He recently completed a year in the final class of the AAOS Leadership Fellows Program and is a graduate of the University of Southern California AOA/APEX Leadership Program. Dr. Schmitz is currently the Deputy Editor for Social Media and Video for The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in addition to being on the Editorial Board for The American Journal of Sports Medicine. He has been awarded numerous teaching awards and the Order of Military Medical Merit for his contributions to military medicine.
Dr. Schmitz is married to Dr. Gillian Schmitz, an Emergency Medicine physician who was recently the President of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and they have two teenage daughters.