It’s hard to put a label on William Mihalko, MD, PhD, at least one that’s not a mile long.
He’s an orthopedic surgeon. He’s a teacher and a mentor. He’s a biomedical engineer. He’s a surgeon-scientist.
He is a Campbell Clinic orthopedic surgeon who in 2012 was appointed the J.R. Hyde Chair of Excellence in Rehabilitative Engineering at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
And it all was triggered by a torn ACL he suffered as a freshman at the University of Rochester, where he was majoring in engineering.
As a result of the injury, he said, “I participated in some gait lab studies through the football team that made me think about medical school. I fashioned my degree for biomedical engineering so I could minor in biology and get my pre-med requirements as well.
“My senior year I was still not certain about medical school, so I applied to grad schools that were affiliated with medical schools,” he said. “After my first semester at the Medical College of Virginia, I joined the orthopedic biomechanics lab to do my master’s thesis and started going to orthopedic grand rounds.
“It was then that I realized this was my calling.”
To trace his interest in healthcare even farther back, the place to start is his mother, Jane, a nurse who he says was one of the influences that led him to medicine. Mihalko’s older sister, Rhonda, followed the path to healthcare as well and is now an office manager for a dental practice in western New York.
He grew up in Jamestown, New York, Sumter, South Carolina, and then Clarence, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. As a youngster he played all the major sports and enjoyed putting together model cars and planes. (“I still wish I had time to do this kind of hobby on a more serious level.”)
By grad school he knew he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon.
“I obtained a biomedical engineering undergraduate degree and focused on biomechanics during my graduate degrees,” he said. “I studied the best fixation techniques to utilize for fractures about a total hip replacement stem for my master’s and the best tensioning techniques for ACL reconstruction grafts to normalize knee kinematics for my doctorate.
“There are less than 2 percent of orthopedic surgeons who have a medical scientist training program dual MD PhD, but the number of engineering students applying to medical school is on the rise.”
Having training in both engineering and medicine, Mihalko believes, gives him certain advantages.
“Most of orthopedic surgery involves reconstruction of the musculoskeletal system,” he said. “Many of these reconstructive techniques involve the use of medical devices and involve engineering principles to obtain the most sound methods to allow patients the best chance at a good outcome.
“Knowing the biomaterial properties and biomechanical attributes involved in the reconstructive procedures, I believe, allows me to be a better orthopedic surgeon.”
Mihalko divides his time between clinical practice at the Memphis Veterans Administration Hospital and in research and administering the joint graduate program in Biomedical Engineering at UTHSC. The doctor derives a great deal of satisfaction from treating veterans.
“As I tell them, they have served us, and now it’s my turn to serve them,” he said. “On the research front we have identified how people with tight hamstrings have impaired functional hip mechanics that may predispose them to early hip arthritis.
“We are working on a larger scale interventional study to see if we can improve their hip mechanics. We have also started a multicenter implant retrieval program that we are looking into genetic predilection to hip and knee implant failures.”
In 2014, the website Expertscape.com rated Mihalko as one of the top 50 worldwide experts in knee arthroplasty.
He has worked in the Northeast, South, Midwest and now the Mid-South, and he has been in Memphis since 2008. He and his wife, Lori, a speech language pathologist, “like the diversity within the Memphis area, and the Southern charm.”
It was while he was at the University of Virginia that Dr. James Beaty and the Campbell Clinic recruited him to Memphis.
“Memphians may take it for granted,” Mihalko said, “but the Campbell Clinic is considered one of the top orthopedic providers in the country, and I could not give up the chance to come to Memphis.”
Among the advances that the doctor finds most promising are in the total joint replacement field of orthopedic surgery.
“We’re focusing on patient modifiable risk factors that can improve patient outcomes,” he said. “Patient-centered care pathways and improvements in pain management are all being utilized to advance recovery times and decrease complications after total hip and knee replacement.”
In the future, Mihalko believes, “we will be able to do a biologic resurfacing of arthritic joints within the next 20 years.”
The doctor met his wife, Lori, while he was doing clinical rotations in medical school. They have five children: Robert, 18, a freshman at Georgia Tech studying chemical engineering; Rachel, 17, a junior at Harding Academy; Matthew, 16, a sophomore at Harding Academy; Michelle, 11, a sixth-grader at FACS, and Marcus, 8, a third-grader at FACS.
Mihalko’s hobbies, he says, are his wife and kids and being active members of Harvest Church.
“My free time is spent with them,” he said. “I like doing do-it-yourself projects around the house that might drive my wife a little crazy, but I find it relaxing.”
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