Today I am joined by Min Kocher, one of the most accomplished academic pediatric orthopedic surgeons of his generation.
Min is Chief of the Division of Sports Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, holds the O’Donnell Family Endowed Chair, and is Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. His career has combined clinical practice, research, mentorship, sports medicine, and national leadership in a way that very few people have managed to do.
Many listeners will know his name from the Kocher criteria, developed to help distinguish septic arthritis of the hip from transient synovitis in children. But that is only one part of a much broader career. He was also early in the development of pediatric sports medicine as a true specialty and in the use of hip arthroscopy in children and adolescents.
What interested me most about this conversation, though, was not one operation or one paper. It was the arc of Min’s career and what it tells us about how pediatric orthopedics has changed.
We talked about the move from experience-based medicine toward evidence and outcomes, how to use clinical rules without allowing them to replace judgment, what sports medicine taught pediatric orthopedics, and what pediatric orthopedics can still teach sports medicine. We also talked about academic careers, mentorship, leadership, institutional culture, and how your priorities change when the goal is no longer simply to build your own career, but to help build the careers of the people who come after you.
This is a conversation about evidence, judgment, leadership, and the long view of pediatric orthopedics.
