Meet Our Team at the IJRR
The team of the IJRR includes members and staff of the Institute as well
as staff of the Washington Joint Restoration Clinic, which is a department
of Washington Hospital.
Comprehensive Care
The IJRR team provides comprehensive care for joint replacement patients,
including total hip, knee and shoulder replacements, joint replacement
revisions, bilateral knee replacement, unicompartmental knee replacement,
anterior hip and reverse total shoulder replacement. At the IJRR, we offer
the very best care from our most talented team. Their knowledge and expertise
will help you get back on your feet. Fast.
Expert Team
A team of joint care specialists which includes John Dearborn, MD, and
Alexander Sah, MD, for hip and knee reconstruction, as well as shoulder
disorders specialist John Costouros, MD, are part of the Institute for
Joint Restoration and Research. Our surgeons are among the world's
best in joint replacement. They perform hundreds of successful total joint
replacements each year using the most advanced surgical techniques and
technology available. Our nurses' and occupational and physical therapists'
patient-centered, compassionate approach to healing ensures a full return
to normal, active living. Whether "normal living" for you means
a return to the workplace or an active lifestyle, our rehabilitation program
is tailored to get you back on track in short order.
John T. Dearborn, MD, Co-Medical Director
John T. Dearborn, MD, is the founder of both the Washington Center for
Joint Replacement and the Institute for Joint Restoration and Research
at Washington Hospital. He earned two undergraduate degrees from Stanford
University (Phi Beta Kappa), and then graduated from the University of
California, San Francisco School of Medicine, earning the Alpha Omega
Alpha distinction in his third year. He completed his orthopaedic residency
at UCSF and joined the medical staff of Washington Hospital in 1997 after
fellowship training in joint replacement at Massachusetts General Hospital
and Harvard Medical School.
In 2001, Dr. Dearborn collaborated with a handful of U.S. surgeons to develop
and teach a less invasive hip replacement technique that facilitated faster
recovery. With this innovative method, Dr. Dearborn and his colleagues
transformed hundreds of thousands of patients' early outcomes following
hip surgery. He took a team from Washington Hospital to Taiwan as a visiting
professor and performed the first partial knee replacements in that country.
In 2004, he joined leading surgeons in implementing minimally invasive
total knee surgery, which substantially reduces the recovery time from
this procedure. He has trained hundreds of other surgeons in this technique
at teaching courses and through surgeon visitation at our facility.
In the past 10 years, Dr. Dearborn has continued to advance the field of
joint replacement as a thought-leader, teaching dozens of courses at venues
all over the world, reviewing paper submissions for the American Academy
of Orthopaedic Surgeons, managing his own clinical research and substantial
implant registry, and working with leading orthopaedic companies to design
and test innovative implant designs. His outcomes from the past 25 years
and over 15,000 procedures are widely referenced and emulated. A current
focus is emulating his advanced hospital rehabilitation protocols in the
ambulatory surgery environment.
Alexander Sah, MD, Co-Medical Director
Alexander Sah, MD, currently serves as Director of the Outpatient Joint
Replacement Program and as Co-Director of the Institute for Joint Restoration
and Research at Washington Hospital in Fremont, CA. He was born at Washington
Hospital and raised in Fremont. He earned his medical degree, graduating
Magna Cum Laude, from Thomas Jefferson Medical College in PA. He then went on to complete
his residency at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Program and then a joint
reconstruction fellowship at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Dr. Sah specializes in total knee and total hip replacement, and developed
the outpatient program in Fremont in 2014. He is the only surgeon performing
anterior hip replacement at IJRR. He has expertise in partial knee replacement
and is the United States lead investigator for one of the newest partial
knee prosthesis. He teaches courses and lectures on this procedure, as
well as on advanced pain management techniques and outpatient joint replacement.
Dr. Sah is a member of leadership committees for the American Academy of
Orthopedic Surgeons, the California Orthopedic Association, and the American
Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. In 2016, he was selected as 1 of
10 orthopedic surgeons in the nation to the prestigious AAOS Leadership
Fellows Program. He is a multi-year recipient of the “Best of Fremont”
Doctor and Orthopedic Surgeon Awards and named a California Top 10 Orthopedic
Surgeon, among many other honors. He also serves as a reviewer for
Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research and an editor for
Techniques in Orthopaedics. Dr. Sah is widely published and is an esteemed speaker, having presented
at more than 50 meetings and conventions across the United States.
John G. Costouros, MD, Medical Director and Chief of Shoulder Surgery
John Costouros, MD, joined the medical staff of Washington Hospital in
2020. Dr. Costouros has devoted his entire career in becoming an expert
in the comprehensive treatment of
all disorders affecting the shoulder — from sports injuries, to fractures,
rotator cuff tears, instability problems, arthritis and failed prior surgeries.
As a prior full-time member of the Stanford Orthopedic Surgery Faculty,
he has trained hundreds of surgeons from around the world. He has developed
and shared the very latest advancements, devices and techniques.
He is board-certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and
a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American
College of Surgeons. He has a certificate of added qualification (CAQ)
in sports medicine. Dr. Costouros graduated with honors from Stanford
University and attended medical school, internship and residency at the
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He completed fellowships
in shoulder surgery and sports medicine at Harvard Medical School and
the Massachusetts General Hospital as well as the University of Zürich
and Balgrist Hospital in Switzerland. He has been a pioneer in reverse
total shoulder replacement and stemless total shoulder replacement as
well as novel minimally invasive arthroscopic techniques. Dr. Costouros
is past president of the UCSF Leroy C. Abbott Orthopaedic Society, the
Northern California Orthopaedic Society, and the Northern California Chapter
of the Western Orthopaedic Association. He is also an active member of
the prestigious American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES), the Arthroscopy
Association of North America (AANA), the European Society of Shoulder
and Elbow Surgeons (SECEC), ISAKOS, the Western Orthopaedic Association
(WOA) and has been a leader with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).
His research is focused on clinical outcomes following traditional and
reverse shoulder joint replacement, stemless shoulder arthroplasty, novel
arthroscopic techniques, and the use of augmented and virtual reality
and robotics to enhance surgical precision and improve outcomes in shoulder
surgery. Finally, he has been involved in multiple FDA clinical trials
and the design of several FDA-approved shoulder joint replacement devices
including most recently the first stemless reverse total shoulder replacement
available in the USA.
Much of the success of the IJRR is driven by the multidisciplinary teams
of physicians, nurses, therapists, and physician assistants who provide
integrated care for every patient. Drs. Dearborn, Sah and Costouros direct
their teams, which include:
- Dedicated, seasoned surgical teams in the operating room
- Physician assistants, who work in surgery and provide care on the IJRR unit
- Registered nurses specializing in the post-surgical needs of joint replacement
and restoration patients
- Physical therapists trained in hip, knee and shoulder rehabilitation using
the IJRR approach
- Occupational therapists who educate patients on safely resuming daily living
- A case manager coordinating home care after the patient leaves the IJRR if needed
- IJRR alumni patients who volunteer on the unit and provide guidance to
patients on what to expect after they go home.