Nick Pappas, MD

Nick Pappas, MD Nick Pappas, MD is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon in New Orleans, LA A New Orleans native, he graduated from St. Martin’s Episcopal School (Metairie, LA).
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Nick Pappas, MD is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with a Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ) in hand surgery who specializes in various hand and upper extremity conditions. He then traveled to Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) for college, where he earned a B.A. in Philosophy and pitched for the baseball team. While at Princeton, he played baseball for all four years on a team that won 2 Ivy League Baseball Championships and made 2 appearances in the NCAA Division I College World Series Tournament. After college, he earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN). He then completed an orthopedic surgery residency at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA). After residency, he returned to Vanderbilt University to complete a fellowship in Hand, Microvascular, and Upper Extremity Surgery. Dr. Pappas has been in practice for over 10 years. He currently serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at both Tulane University and Louisiana State University. He is also a member of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and serves as a consultant reviewer for the prestigious Journal of Hand Surgery, American. He has an active interest in clinical research with over 30 peer-reviewed publications and multiple textbook chapters to his credit. For a complete up-to-date listing of all Dr. Pappas’s publications, please click the following link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Pappas+n

03/15/2026

You can match at any orthopedic residency program in the country with that letter of recommendation 🔨😷

👉 All jokes aside,Match Day 2026 coming in hot this Thursday. Best of luck to all those medical students going through the process. It definitely can be stressful, but it is nice to finally find out what you're going to be doing with the rest of your life.

03/14/2026

You knew it was going to happen at some point…too bad Park the Shark turned out to be epitome of an orthopedic tool. Not the greatest representation of us bone brothers and sisters. Perhaps a cautionary tale 🚨

🦴😷 As for leg replantation, it’s extremely rare. I only know of one surgeon who even has attempted it. In general, replantation has a higher success rate if the initial amputation is more of a guillotine or sharp mechanism rather than a crush injury because the blood vessel damage is generally less with the former. I realize he said the fracture was “not bad” because it was a clean fracture line but stillI…it is completely amputated. Also, it is pretty close to the joint.

👉 Do you know any orthopedic surgeons like Park the Shark? Let me know in the comments.

❌ If this is still our reputation out there, I certainly have my work cut out for me on social media normalizing orthopedic surgeons…and doctors, in general.

03/14/2026

While I applaud any effort to make drug prices more affordable, I don't see how TrumpRx is any better than what we already have, which is GoodRx . In fact, you can't use TrumpRx if you have government insurance like Medicare or Medicaid; however, you can use GoodRx. Also, GoodRx has many more medications available than TrumpRx.

👉 If we really want to cut drug prices, I think we need to face to fact that we have to break up the vertical integration of these health insurance giants that have made healthcare unaffordable. and have recently introduced bipartisan legislation in the form of the “BREAK UP MEDICINE ACT” to do just that.

03/13/2026

Comment TOPICAL and I’ll send you a link to my evidence-based topical CBD balm with the same concentration and mixture as in the research study. It can also be found on www.elevatedhealth.org

💊 Oral NSAIDs certainly be effective but do have side effects and may be contraindicated if you have stomach or kidney issues. Although there are several options for other types of topical anti-inflammatories, lately I’ve seen the best results with topical CBD (cannabidiol).

😷 However, it has always been difficult to determine what concentration to use. Recently, there was a 2022 randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of Hand Surgery (PMID: 35637038) that showed a concentration of 6.2 mg/mL of CBD mixed with shea butter provided 60% pain relief after 2 weeks for arthritis. It was compared with placebo, and the results were statistically significant (p < .05). No adverse events were noted.

Unfortunately, the study only involved 18 patients, so I definitely need to see more studies with larger numbers of patients and even a comparison to Voltaren gel to make any definitive conclusions. Nonetheless, this is the best data we have for now.

👉 As a result of this study, I decided to work with my cofounder and another colleague to replicate the mixture used in the study. A lot of my patients were asking me for a high-quality balm, and this was my solution. We had it produced in a cGMP-certified lab, which helps ensure its quality.

💪 So far I’ve seen good results on my patients with this mixture and even use it myself for various aches and pains. However, always check with your own doctor before starting any new topical balm.

🚨 All that being said, stay tuned for more research on this topic, as I know of several other physicians who are currently conducting studies on topical CBD and other topical pain relievers to determine just how well they actually work.

03/13/2026

Ortho was in my blood…along with Ancef 💉

Haters will say it's AI…at least some of it.

03/12/2026

Comment NEWSLETTER for more similar health information 🗞️

I normally leave an elaborate caption, but honestly I just want to see what happens in the comment section 🍿.

03/11/2026

If you have a choice and you don't have any major medical issues, I personally would choose to have my procedure done at an ambulatory surgery center. Not only may the surgical team be more familiar with one another, the cost for the facility fee will be half as much (if not even less than that) as it would be at a hospital. In some cases, hospitals mark up the facility fee three times more than it would be at a surgery center, which can mean a higher cost to you as the patient.

🏥 If you've had procedures done at both hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, which one would you prefer? Let me know in the comments.

✅ If you're looking for a good surgery center to have your orthopedic, pain management, foot/ankle, or spinal surgical procedure done, come check out Harvard Surgery Center in Metairie, Louisiana where I operate.

03/10/2026

Comment BONE and I'll send you a link to the book 📕.

🦴 One of the focuses of my social media (and my free weekly newsletter) is to illustrate the importance of preserving your muscle and bone health. Dr. Jocelyn Wittstein and Sydney Nitzkorski’s new book shows you how you can do just that. It's simple, it's easy to read, and it's evidence based. I highly recommend you check it out.

03/10/2026

Never hold a lit firework!

🧨 Overall, The PITT did a good job demonstrating this all too common Fourth of July firework hand injury. As an orthopedic hand surgeon, I've seen this type of injury often.

👉 In some cases, there is a digit to reattach, but in others such as this one the firework is so powerful that it blows the fingers into multiple small fragments that cannot be reattached.

💥

03/10/2026

What are your thoughts on this content?

In my opinion, making fun of patients is never acceptable, especially for a healthcare provider.

03/09/2026

Comment NEWSLETTER for more similar health information, and I'll send you a link to my free weekly newsletter 🗞️

🚨 Believe it or not, one of the few things I remember from organic chemistry aside from the SN2 backside attack (which is obviously useless to me now as an orthopedic surgeon) is that the S isomer of thalidomide is responsible for birth defects like phocomelia (shortened arms and legs).

😷 Even though it may have its faults and is not without controversy, the FDA did protect US citizens from having this birth defect become prominent in the 1960s. Frances Kelsey, pharmacologist, is to thank.

🧬💉 Now I know many of the individuals who've had good results with peptides such as BPC-157 (e.g. for tendon/ligament or wound healing) are not happy with the FDA for failing to approve it and many other similar peptides, but the reality is that there are no quality human trials to prove that BPC-157 doesn’t potentially cause other issues down the road such as cancers. The human trials are essential.

🏥 Although the FDA certainly has some shortcomings, it is not designed to keep you sick. It is designed to keep you safe. Although it may have had its share of controversy over the years especially surrounding Covid, we still do need some oversight before we let new drugs hit the market.

03/09/2026

What do you think about Arnold's comments?

I was actually in attendance at this talk, which took place at the 2026 annual meeting of orthopedic surgeons last week.

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