Nick the Knee MD

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Yakima, WA
Nick the Knee MD

Complex knee surgeon in the PNW. Mayo Clinic graduate. Professor at CWU, WSU, & PNWU.

02/11/2026

This last month has been a whirlwind of travel, teaching, learning and amazing opportunities to connect with colleagues and friends! It started with a trip to Austin to visit my friends at Enovis and discuss what’s coming soon in the world of augmented reality in surgery.

Then it was a quick trip to Nashville to talk all things unloader bracing with the amazing folks at Ossur.

Straight from Nashville, I headed to Minneapolis to teach a Smith & Nephew Fellows Course with some of my amazing mentors and friends like , , , Chris Larson, and Chris LaPrade.

The week after that, I found myself on the east coast discussing all that’s new in the world of cartilage restoration with the esteemed Vericel team.

I rounded out the month back with the likes of and in Nashville.

Always appreciate the opportunity to learn from those brighter than me, and getting to do it in some cool cities is a plus!

01/24/2026

🎥: Wedding Crashers
⭐️:
🎦: produced by

Moooovie mashup time!

This time, we have my favorite scene from my favorite movie, Wedding Crashers. Ever wondered who keeps us orthopedic surgeons in line? That would be our medical assistants. They have the near impossible task of keeping us on-task and on-time. Which, given how much most surgeons love to hear themselves talk, can be quite difficult. From dealing with return to work forms, answering patient phone calls, helping deal with and sometimes fight the insurance companies, medical assistants wear a lot of hats and have very demanding jobs. Fortunately we have who helps keep Kent, Britt and myself in line.

Also a shoutout to another fantastic rep for playing the Owen Wilson role in this video and helping talk about . It’s a great technology that helps my patients work on early range of motion after surgery which is key to success.

01/17/2026

Medicine Movie Mashups is quickly becoming Adam Sandler Movie Medicine Mashups. Not mad about it.

While golfers have caddies as their loyal companions, orthopedic surgeons have device reps. Instead of helping select the correct club for distance and course conditions, the rep’s role is to ensure the physician has the correct tools, knows how they work and ensures they are used correctly. Sometimes — like the faithful caddy — the reps find themselves at the mercy of the emotions/mood of the surgeon.

However, I can’t overstate how invaluable they are to the success of the procedure and therefore good patient outcomes. I’m very fortunate to work with a fantastic group of device reps:

Big thanks to Bruce for always being a good sport and lending his acting prowess to this video. I promise I don’t actually call him names!

As always thanks to Kent, my partner in crime .

As always, produced by .

Inspired by the great Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. Adam, holler if you ever want to collab on one of these someday 👀

🎥: Happy Gilmore
⭐️:
🎦: edited by

01/09/2026

Happy Gilmore 🤝 Nick The Knee MD

“Am I gonna have an ugly scar?” is one of the most common questions and concerns for patients. The aesthetic appearance of the scar is primarily determined by two factors.

1) The first and more important is your biology. Healthy habits, avoiding ni****ne, eating a healthy diet with sufficient protein, fruits and vegetables, and your personal genetics. Some people are prone to forming big keloid scars, and unfortunately no matter how healthy they are, that’s how their scar will form.

2) The second important aspect of your scar is the skill and care of the person “closing” (suturing) your skin. In many/the majority of orthopedic ORs in the country, that responsibility lies with the nurse practitioner/PA/surgical assist. Fortunately for our patients, they get the expert skills of Britt The Knee NP.

Don’t take the skit too seriously — it’s just for show. We really aren’t that hard on Britt… right ?

🎥: Happy Gilmore
⭐️:
🎦: edited by

01/02/2026

With 2025 in the books and a second to reflect, very grateful for the opportunities I have had to care for so many fantastic patients and help get them back to the activities they love. And grateful for my fantastic team (, and ). Excited for what the new year brings with the knee team.

On another note, 2 weeks ago I was able to complete my first race with my teammate and future orthopedic surgeon () in Vancouver BC. It was an awesome experience, the city, the venue, the people. Obviously found a local coffee spot .coffee and had one of best lattes I have had maybe forever. Overall safe to say I’m hooked and Ta’a and I have some non-work goals that we are going to get after this year with another couple hyrox races: the next being in Vegas!

12/25/2025

Time for a Christmas-themed 🎄

This movie mashup is a throwback to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation! An orthopedic surgeon’s perfect Christmas tree is a beautiful arthroscopy tower. This is the video system we use to visualize INSIDE a patient’s joint to allow us to perform even complex surgeries through small incisions with the use of an arthroscope (camera). The video from the camera is then displayed on our 4k viewing system so we can see the anatomy as clear as you can watch a Seahawks victory on your home big screen. The newer iterations even allow us to record videos and overlay voice descriptions of the surgery so we can give you a play by play that even John Madden would have been impressed by.

Merry Xmas from our team to you!

🎥: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
⭐️:
🎦: edited by

12/10/2025

Marvel hates to see us coming 😤

Introducing Super Knee Stories, where we’ll be telling the super hero stories of those who didn’t allow their knee injury to be the end of their hobbies, passions, or crafts.

We’ll highlight patients’ triumphant returns and share their experiences to bring injured folks hope and optimism in their recovery.

For the first patient story, we’re starting with my own unfortunate injury, and how it inspired my ultimate journey to becoming Nick The Knee MD!

11/04/2025

If you’ve seen my reels, you’ll know how much of a gadget guy I am. So I was jacked to go to the 2025 AAHKS (American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons) annual meeting and talk shop!

One of the major topics was navigation in surgery, which include robotic, computer-navigated and augmented reality. I presented on ARVIS augmented reality technology, and why it’s such a fantastic tool for surgeons to customize surgery to their patients’ specific needs.

Plus, was a blast to catch up with great friends and learn from some amazing colleagues on all things “arthroplasty”, aka joint replacement. Til next year!

10/24/2025

Time for Orthopedic Surgeon’s Toolbox Episode 2! Ever wondered what kind of tools a surgeon uses to fix meniscus and ligament tears? Wonder no more: we’ll cover it in episode 2.

What else would you want to know about? Comment anything you’re curious about in regards to orthopedic surgery and maybe we’ll make it into the next episode 👀

📷:

10/10/2025

Aaand we’re back with another ! What is a swing room? A swing room — as the name implies — is a second operating room the surgeon can use, so they can immediately start their next surgery after their previous surgery has concluded. It increases efficiency for the surgeon and therefore, almost every surgeon you will ever meet will start asking for a “swing room” the second they have more than one surgery. Most of us would love a second room even if we had only two cases!

However, operating rooms are a premium, and it is rare to have enough space and teammates to “run” two rooms. Your best chance is to make a wish and ask your surgical “charge nurse”, AKA the boss, really really nicely if you can have one. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get your one in a million.

Who recognizes what movie this scene is inspired by? 👀

⭐️: Charge Nurse Heather, ,
📸:

Address

2811 Tieton Drive
Yakima, WA
98902

Website

http://nickthekneemd.com/

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