I grew up in Maine, attended high school in Vermont, and studied philosophy at the University of Colorado—an interest that continues to shape how I think about medical knowledge and decision-making. I graduated with honors from Dartmouth Medical School in 1999, trained at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, where I served as administrative chief resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed a fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2004.

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 I find hard to access elsewhere; it's absorbing in a way that quiets everything else. I designed and built a baroque lute while I was an orthopaedic surgical resident, and I remain interested in historical instrument construction. I've published recordings on SoundCloud, and an album is currently in production.