Ricky Wayne Wright is an American orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist. He was the Jerome J. Gilden Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine before becoming the Dan Spengler, M.D., Chair in Orthopaedics at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

. His tenure as chair has been overshadowed by a myriad of lawsuits relating to his professional conduct including, but not limited to: discrimination, retaliatory behavior, and bias relating to gender and sexual orientation.

Early life and education

Wright was born and raised in Sikeston, Missouri, where he graduated from

Sikeston High School Sikeston High School, also known as SHS, is a public secondary school in Sikeston, Missouri. History In 1868, a two-story public school building was constructed at the corner of West Malone and School Street. In 1884, this building was destroy ...

in 1980. Upon receiving his high school diploma, he attended the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

for his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

and medical degree. Wright completed his medical residency and internship in orthopaedics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center before becoming a fellow at the Minneapolis Sports Medicine Center.

Career

Wright joined the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in 1994 before earning his certification from the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery in 1996. As a practicing sports medicine specialist, Wright was appointed the head team physician of the St. Louis Cardinals of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

in 2005, having already worked with the

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994. The arri ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

and with the St. Louis Blues in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

. During his tenure with the Rams, Wright received the Cabaud Memorial Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) for his paper ''Transcriptomic Signatures of Meniscal Tears and Articular Cartilage from Knees Undergoing Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy Show Evidence for Early Osteoarthritis.'' He stayed with the Rams until their move to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 2016 and helped them win two Super Bowls. As a result of his assistance with the St. Louis Blues, he was gifted three hours with the

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...

following their

2019 Stanley Cup Finals The 2019 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 2018–19 season and the culmination of the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs. The Western Conference champion St. Louis Blues defeated the Eastern Confer ...

win. Following his appointment to head team physician in 2005, Wright also began directing Washington's orthopedic surgery residency program which later earned him a Distinguished Educator Award. While serving in this role, he became the principal investigator of the ''Multi-center ACL Revision Study,'' a research project which aimed to determine risk factors related to IKDC, KOOS and Marx activity rating scores. In 2010, Wright became a

Full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

and was later appointed the Dr. Asa C. and Mrs. Dorothy W. Jones Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine. Beginning in 2013, Wright has remained a member of the ABOS Board of Directors. He and William Levine were first elected the co-directors of ABOS board of directors in 2013. Three years later, while serving as Washington's Jerome J. Gilden Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, he was appointed AOA 132nd president taking over for Regis J. O'Keefe. As a result of his medical research and experience, Wright was later elected president-elect of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) for a one year term from 2018 until 2019 and then president from 2019-present. He continued his research on ACL tears and was recognized by the academy with the 2019 Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award. Wright left the University of Washington to become the chair of orthopaedic surgery at

. He received their endowed chair position, the Dan Spengler, M.D., Chair in Orthopaedics, the following year. Since his time at Vanderbilt he has faced a number of lawsuits due to his professionalism, or lack thereof.https://www.workerscompensation.com/daily-headlines/vanderbilts-chief-medical-officer-faces-multiple-lawsuits/

References

External links

* https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/vumc-executive-lawsuits/article_3c17ab40-fcd8-11ee-92a8-2f2ad90b0282.html * https://www.workerscompensation.com/daily-headlines/vanderbilts-chief-medical-officer-faces-multiple-lawsuits/ * https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/surgeon-professor-alleges-discrimination-at-vumc-in-lawsuit/article_aac8c616-b939-11ed-a744-bb80886f041e.html * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Rick W. Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Vanderbilt University faculty Washington University School of Medicine faculty American orthopedic surgeons University of Missouri alumni People from Sikeston, Missouri