About me
I grew up in Maine and studied philosophy at the University of Colorado — an interest that still shapes how I think about medicine. I graduated with honors from Dartmouth Medical School in 1999 and trained at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, serving as administrative chief resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. After a fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital, I practiced in Portland, Maine doing general orthopaedics and the full spectrum of Orthopaedic Trauma. I joined Elliot Hospital in 2010 to pursue trauma exclusively and have served as Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery since 2014.
Athletic career
I pursued a career in ski racing before college. I was named to the U.S. Ski Team at age 17 and raced on the World Cup circuit in giant slalom. I competed at the World Junior Championships in Italy and Alaska, finishing 7th in giant slalom in 1988, and won the Canadian Giant Slalom Championships in 1990. I was the top American finisher at the 1991 World Alpine Ski Championships in Saalbach, Austria.
I was named to the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team and raced the men's giant slalom in Albertville, France that February — the best U.S. finisher, in 20th place overall. After the Olympics I retired at age 22 to begin the long path toward becoming an orthopaedic surgeon.
Baroque lute
My primary hobby is playing the baroque lute — specifically the 18th-century repertoire of Sylvius Leopold Weiss and J.S. Bach. Playing this music requires a kind of presence and attention that is hard to access elsewhere. I designed and built a baroque lute while I was an orthopaedic surgical resident, and I remain interested in historical instrument construction. My current instrument was designed and built for me by a master luthier in Vancouver. Here is a recording I made of a Weiss prelude in D major from the London manuscript:
And L’Esprit Italienne by Weiss — an exemplar of Weiss’s mastery of the lute and the Italian cantabile style of writing:
I am currently working on a Baroque Lute Transcriber Project — a system that converts keyboard repertoire into historically idiomatic French tablature for the 13-course baroque lute.
Philosophy of science · Analytic metaphysics · Epistemology
Philosophy has been a lifelong interest, beginning with my undergraduate degree and continuing through three decades of surgical practice. What started as formal study became a working habit of mind — questions about knowledge, probability, and vagueness that eventually grew into a research program of their own. It is the common thread running through how I read the literature, how I counsel patients, and what I choose to study. More under Research →
General aviation
I've been a pilot since 1988. After renewing that lifelong interest, I earned my instrument rating in 2023 and now fly a turbocharged Beech Bonanza B36TC equipped for high-altitude flight.