Professor Paul N Smith AM BMBS FRACS FAOrthA

Professor Paul Smith was awarded Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday honours list.

Professor Smith began practice in Canberra in 1998 and has become one of Australia’s most experienced and highly regarded hip and knee surgeons, having performed over 5000 hip and knee replacement procedures. He is Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Australian National University, Director of the Trauma and Orthopaedic Research Unit at the Canberra Hospital and the John Curtin School of Medical Research, and Orthopaedic Unit Director at the Canberra Hospital. Professor Smith is chair of the Australian Orthopaedic Association (ACT branch) and also Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (ACT Branch)

Professor Smith’s main areas of elective clinical interest include hip and knee replacement surgery, knee reconstruction, joint preservation surgery of the hip and knee, and complex revision joint replacement surgery. In the trauma field Professor Smith’s major interest is pelvic and acetabular fracture reconstruction – he is the only surgeon between Sydney and Melbourne to subspecialise in this area.

Professor Smith is widely recognised as a nationally leading orthopaedic researcher with over 160 peer reviewed publications and more than 100 conference presentations. He is a regular speaker at national and international meetings. He has supervised over 15 MPhil and PhD students in their higher degree studies. In the field of knee research alone Professor Smith has published over 40 papers. Professor Smith is the only Australian surgeon to have been awarded the prestigious The Knee Society Insall Fellowship, receiving this fellowship award in recognition of his research in the area of knee kinematics. In 2016 Professor Smith established the Canberra Orthopaedic Research and Education (CORE) Foundation to provide support for research in orthopaedic surgery in the ACT. Professor Smith was awarded Fellowship of the Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA) Research Foundation in 2018 and received the AOA Award for Orthopaedic Research in 2019.

Professor Smith has a major commitment to the ACT community through his role over the past 10 years as chair of the John James Memorial Foundation (JJMF). The JJMF is the ACT region’s largest health and medical charitable foundation. The foundation supports Canberra health charities through its program of annual community grants totalling almost $500,000 each year, and provides scholarships for indigenous students at the ANU Medical School. The JJMF also undertakes major health infrastructure projects, most notably the John James Village in Garran. In 2020 the JJMF will build an early intervention centre for autism in partnership with the AEIOU Foundation.