SC Connecticut News

Lisa Lattanza, a world-renowned leader in patient-specific 3D surgical planning and technology for deformity correction, was recently appointed the Ensign Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation. The appointment is for a term of 10 years, renewable by the dean of the Yale School of Medicine (YSM).

She currently serves as chair of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation and chief of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation for Yale New Haven Hospital, and she is affiliated with the Yale Institute for Global Health.

After earning her M.D. in 1993 from the Medical College of Ohio (now the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences), Lattanza completed her residency in orthopedic surgery at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a fellowship in hand surgery at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons/Roosevelt Hospital.

Before joining Yale School of Medicine in 2019, Lattanza was chief of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery and vice chair of faculty affairs at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Although Lattanza treats all conditions and traumatic injuries in the upper extremity, she specializes in post-traumatic and congenital reconstruction for pediatric and adult elbow problems, treating patients from around the country and across the globe. She utilized her expertise in 3D surgical planning and technology when, in 2016, she led a team to perform the first elbow-to-elbow transplant in the world, transplanting a patient’s left elbow into his right arm to give him one functioning extremity after a devastating accident.

Using 3D computing, she also pioneered a new classification system and approach to the treatment of chronic Monteggia fracture dislocations (dislocations of the radial head that can accompany an ulnar fracture) in children. She frequently travels to Nicaragua and other countries on mission trips to perform hand surgery and is eager to expand upon the global initiatives already in place in the department.

She also has a strong commitment to promoting diversity in orthopaedic surgery, specifically for women who are underrepresented in the profession. When she came to Yale in 2019, she became one of only two current female chairs of orthopaedics in the United States. In 2009, she co-founded the Perry Outreach Program to increase exposure of high school girls to orthopaedic surgery and biomechanical engineering. The initiative, which began with 18 high school girls in San Francisco/UCF, now has programs in more than 54 cities nationwide and over 17,000 young women students from high school through medical school have participated.

Lattanza has received numerous awards for both her clinical care and outreach efforts. She received UCSF’s Compassionate Physician Award in 2013, as well as their Exceptional Physician Award and Jefferson Award for Community Service in 2014. In 2021 she was given the Diversity Award by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery. During her time at UCSF she was ranked by her peers as a Bay Area Top Physician for multiple years. She also served as president of the Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society in 2017 and is active within several professional organizations including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, American Society for Surgery of the Hand, and American Orthopaedic Association.