Douglas Dirschl is professor and chair of the Joseph Barnhart Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he holds the Wilhelmina Barnhart Chair.
He specializes in orthopedic traumatology, infections of bone, and fragility fractures and bone health. His research interests include bone health, the reliability of fracture classification systems, image processing and neural networks, and tissue engineering for fracture healing and the management of bone infection.
Dr. Dirschl joined Baylor in 2023 after a decade at the University of Chicago, where he was the Lowell T. Coggeshall Professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine as well as physician-in-chief of the musculoskeletal service line. Before that he served for 10 years as chair of the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where he spent the bulk of his academic career.
He earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and his medical degree cum laude from Oregon Health Sciences University, then completed his orthopedic surgery residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Dirschl is nationally known as an academic leader, educator, fracture surgeon and advocate for bone health. He served as president of the American Orthopaedic Association from 2011 to 2012 and was named an ABC Traveling Fellow in 2001.