Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Bess Brackett has been named president of the Board of Directors of the prestigious Clinical Orthopaedic Society. One of two female orthopedic surgeons at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, she is the first woman president of The Clinical Orthopaedic Society in its nearly 100-year history. The society celebrates its centennial next year in Chicago. She is also the first second-generation president. Her father, Dr. Boone Brackett, also an orthopedist, was president in 1999.
Based in Virginia, The Clinical Orthopaedic Society is the second oldest orthopedics society in the nation with 402 members, all orthopedists from throughout the United States.
An orthopedist at Gifford since 2009, Dr. Bess Brackett attended medical school at the University of Cincinnati and went on to five years of residency at St. Luke’s Hospital, an affiliate of Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. She joined her father in practice in Oak Park, Ill., in 1993 for six years before starting her own practice, Emerald Orthopaedics, in Greeley, Colo., in 1999. She came to Gifford in Vermont from Colorado.
Certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, she’s a fellow with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, a former board member of the Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society and was previously first president-elect of the board of The Clinical Orthopaedic Society.
She was elected to her new post as president of the board at the society’s annual meeting in Charleston, S.C.
“It’s a great honor, tempered with a lot of responsibility,” Dr. Brackett said.
Past presidents have surgical procedures and orthopedic diseases named after them, she said, rattling off names like Dr. Walter Blount, for whom Blount’s disease is named.
In her year as president, Dr. Brackett’s goal is to help steward the society into its next 100 years. “I just want to have helped in some small way.”
Stewart Hinckley is the executive director of the society and is thrilled to have Dr. Brackett at the helm of the board.
“I can’t think of a more qualified, devoted and energetic leader,” he said.