January 31, 2017

Each year, Washington University holds a Founders Day celebration, which commemorates the university’s founding in 1853. The university began celebrating Founders Day as part of the 100th Anniversary of Washington University in 1953, and has since grown to include an entire week of activities that included basketball games, an Assembly Series lecture, and a Saturday evening dinner that honored distinguished alumni and faculty and featured a nationally prominent speaker.

At this year’s Founders Day, hand and wrist surgeon Richard Gelberman, MD, was recognized with the 2016 Distinguished Faculty Award. This award recognizes a faculty member’s outstanding commitment to the intellectual and personal development of students.

As the former chairman of Washington University Orthopedics, Dr. Gelberman has led an active role in educating future orthopedic surgeons both locally and nationally. In the past, he served as the President of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery and President of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. In 2003, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Gelberman specializes in treating all conditions of the hand and wrist, including traumatic and degenerative conditions of the hand and wrist, fractures of the carpus and radius, tendon and nerve injuries, and wrist deformities due to rheumatoid arthritis. To learn more about Dr. Gelberman, click here.