Team & Medical Board

Dr. Kubiak is presently an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery with Tenure at the University of Utah and has extensive experience as an academic Orthopedic Trauma and Adult Reconstruction surgeon. He has acted as a Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on numerous clinical and research studies. He has extensive experience with various surgical methods, having completed clinical research projects on and published peer-reviewed articles in the area of orthopedic injury and rehabilitation. Dr. Kubiak was a member of a research team that was recently recognized by the Department of Defense with a Peer Reviewed Orthopedic Technology Development Award for a new fracture healing monitoring system. Dr. Kubiak has published more than fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is currently the Special Articles Editor for the Editorial Board of the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma. He attended the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Dr. Gowski is a board certified orthopedic surgeon with a subspecialty certificate in the field of hand surgery. Dr. Gowski received his medical degree from the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He completed his orthopedic training at the University of Utah, and his hand fellowship training at the Raymond M. Curtis National Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He is now in private practice at Intermountain Healthcare’s TOSH (the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital) facility in Murray, Utah. Though his practice is primarily clinical in nature, he maintains adjunct faculty status with the University of Utah Department of Orthopedics, educates residents and fellows, and has been published in multiple peer reviewed journals. Dr. Gowski has a focus on the care of acutely traumatized hands, and brings a wealth of practical knowledge and experience to the medical advisory board.

Florian Nickisch, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah and an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the Veterans Administration hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He earned his medical degree at Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen, Munich, Germany. He did his residency and fellowship in Orthopedic Surgery at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and was appointed Chief Resident in 2004. He then did an internship at Sigvard T. Hansen Foot and Ankle Institute in Washington. Later, he served as a fellow and Clinical Instructor of Orthopedic Trauma at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and a fellow and Staff Surgeon at the Orthopedic Foot and Ankle at the O.L. Miller Foot and Ankle Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Nickisch has published 35 peer reviewed articles in scientific journals. He brings a wealth of clinical experience and state of the art surgical techniques in Orthopedic Trauma and foot and ankle surgery.

Christopher L. Peters, M.D. is the George S. Eccles Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Utah. He serves as Chief of the Adult Reconstruction and Hip Preservation Services and Director of the Adult Reconstruction Fellowship Program. He previously served as the Orthopaedic Residency Program Director at the University of Utah. Dr. Peters received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis and his medical degree from the University of Southern California. He completed a general surgery internship at LAC/USC County Hospital and Orthopedic Residency at the University of Utah. He then pursued an adult reconstruction fellowship at Rush Presbyterian Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He joined the University of Utah Orthopedic faculty in 1994. Dr. Peters has a clinical practice focused on hip and knee arthroplasty and preservation of the native hip joint. He has specific interest in comprehensive care of young adult patients with hip and knee disorders. His practice encompasses primary and revision hip and knee replacement and emphasizes management of complex arthroplasty problems. The evaluation and treatment of young adults and adolescents with hip disorders such as hip impingement and hip dysplasia is a major component of his clinical practice.

Dr. Melvin P. Rosenwasser is currently the Robert E. Carroll Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and the Director of Orthopedic Hand and Orthopedic Trauma Services, Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Columbia University Medical Center. A world renowned leader in hand and orthopedic trauma surgery, Dr. Rosenwasser has contributed both clinically and through basic and applied research to the understanding and treatment of osteoarthritis of the basal joint of the thumb. Dr. Rosenwasser is a 1972 graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and received his medical degree in 1976 from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed a surgical residency at Roosevelt Hospital and an orthopedic residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. This was followed by a one year hand surgery fellowship under the direction of Robert E. Carroll, MD at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in 1983. Dr. Rosenwasser began his practice in 1983 at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and was appointed as the director of the hand service in 1996, and the orthopedic trauma service in 1998. He was named the first Robert E. Carroll Professor of Orthopedics and Hand Surgery at Columbia University in 2000. He has also served as the hand surgeon consultant to the New York Yankees since 1989. Dr. Rosenwasser has continued to train national and international post graduate hand fellows as the director of the nation’s first hand fellowship begun at Columbia by Dr. Carroll in 1958. Dr. Rosenwasser’s research interests have been focused on osteoarthritis as a disease and he has investigated both fundamental causes and specific treatments. He has received two NIH R01 grants to study the etiology of thumb carpometacarpal joint osteoarthritis. He has also received a Career Development Award and a Bristol Myers / Zimmer Grant from the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation for basic research in osteoarthritis. The American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the Arthritis Foundation have also awarded him research grants for the development of a clinical registry documenting the natural history of the course and outcomes of basal joint osteoarthritis that will affect more than 30 per cent of the population over 50 years of age with a predilection for women. These research efforts have culminated in many full length peer reviewed publications and many book chapters and review articles. Dr. Rosenwasser has received numerous honors and awards. In 1998 Dr. Rosenwasser was selected to New York Magazine’s Hall of Fame and has been voted to the New York Magazine’s Best Doctors list each year since. He was elected President of the New York Society for Surgery of the Hand in 2003. He was elected President of the Foundation for Orthopedic Trauma, a U.S. based surgeon organization which is focused on education and research in fracture care, in 2004. He was elected as the President of the Osteosynthesis and Trauma Care Foundation, a global organization based in Switzerland dedicated to improving trauma care around the world, in 2008. Dr. Rosenwasser is associate editor for the American Journal of Orthopedics and contributes as a consultant editor to many other orthopedic journals. He has served on the Executive Board for the Orthopedic Trauma Association and the American Orthopedic Association. He has chaired many academic courses and symposia both in the United States and around the world.

Dr. Sanders specializes in acute trauma and post-traumatic reconstruction, as well as Foot and Ankle surgery. He is President of Florida Orthopaedic Institute, a group he helped found, and Director of the Orthopaedic Trauma Service. Dr. Sanders attended medical school at New York University School of Medicine in New York City, and performed his residency at the Hospital for Joint Diseases Orthopaedic Institute, also in New York City, graduating in 1985. Dr. Sanders received fellowship training in musculoskeletal trauma at Vanderbilt University Medical School, and then went on to obtain the AO/ASIF Jack McDaniels Memorial Trauma Fellowship, which he completed under the tutelage of Thomas Ruedi, M.D. in Chur, Switzerland. Upon his return, he spent several months with Sigvard Hansen as a foot and ankle fellow at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Dr. Sanders is highly respected both Nationally and Internationally for his work in orthopaedic trauma, and foot and ankle surgery. He has designed a comprehensive plating system for articular fractures of the upper and lower extremities (A.L.P.S.©, DePuy Orthopaedics), as well as developing a complete intramedullary nailing system for long bones (Trigen©, Smith & Nephew) in conjunction with Dr. Toney Russell, M.D. of Memphis, Tennessee. He holds over 20 design patents on Orthopaedic Implants and Instrumentation. Dr. Sanders is the Past President of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (2004-5) and is currently serving as Director of the Orthopaedic Trauma Service, and the Chief of the Department of Orthopaedics at Tampa General Hospital. He has been involved in resident and fellowship training for over twenty (20) years. He has been a past Chairman of the Committee on Trauma for both the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and for the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society. Dr. Sanders has authored over 100 articles and abstracts on orthopaedic trauma, published several textbooks on orthopaedic trauma, and is presently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, the leading International Journal in the field. He has served as faculty for over 150 courses, has given over 250 lectures, and served as course Chairman for 40 courses to train other orthopaedic surgeons, including originating the AO/ASIF Course in Foot and Ankle Trauma with Sigvard Hansen, and the Current Solutions in Orthopaedic Trauma Course, now in its 10th year. He has been an investigator in over 20 research studies including a landmark National Institutes of Health investigation on limb salvage, for which he was a recipient of the AAOS prestigious Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughan Award for Outstanding Orthopaedic Research in February of 2003. His special areas of expertise include acute fractures as well as reconstructive surgery of the lower extremity (complex fractures, mal/nonunions, deformity correction, post-traumatic arthritis, and bone infections).

Dr. Robert Tashjian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics at the University Of Utah School Of Medicine. Dr. Tashjian specializes in shoulder and elbow surgery. Dr. Tashjian received his medical doctorate from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA. He completed an orthopaedic residency at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI followed by an orthopaedic trauma fellowship at Brown under the direction of Peter G. Trafton, MD. Dr. Tashjian completed an additional fellowship in shoulder and elbow surgery at Washington University in St. Louis under the direction of Ken Yamaguchi, MD. Dr. Tashjian has been a shoulder and elbow surgeon at the University of Utah for the past nine years. Dr. Tashjian has over 70 peer-reviewed publications focusing the treatment of shoulder and elbow disorders. His primary research interests focus on functional outcomes analysis of shoulder and elbow disorders, genetics of rotator cuff tearing and healing and biomechanical evaluation of reverse shoulder arthroplasty. He is Chief of Orthopaedics at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Salt Lake City and has received grant funding from the VA to evaluate the genetics of rotator cuff tearing. He is an active member of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) and has recently been awarded and completed the prestigious European Traveling Shoulder and Elbow Fellowship sponsored by the ASES.

Dr. Widmer is a board certified orthopedic surgeon with a sub-specialization in shoulder and elbow surgery. Dr. Widmer received his medical degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He completed his orthopedic training at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT. He completed his shoulder and elbow reconstruction fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. He also spent six months as a clinical and research fellow at the Sydney Orthopaedic Research Institute in Sydney, Australia. He is now in private practice at Intermountain Healthcare’s TOSH (The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital) facility in Murray, Utah. Though his practice is primarily clinical in nature, he maintains adjunct faculty status with the University of Utah Department Of Orthopedics, educates residents and fellows, and has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Widmer focuses on surgical treatment of traumatic and degenerative conditions of the shoulder and elbow. He brings a wealth of practical knowledge and experience to the medical advisory board.