Richard L. Skolasky

RICHARD L. SKOLASKY, Jr., Sc.D. joined the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in 2004. He is an accomplished, well-regarded, doctoral-trained health services researcher and an integral member of the leadership within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He serves as a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Vice Chair of Research, and Director of the Surgical Outcomes Research Center.

Dr. Skolasky earned his B.A. degree in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences and studied Epidemiology/Biostatics at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. After earning his M.A. degree in Experimental Psychology at Towson University in Maryland, he earned his Doctor of Science in Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Once in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Skolasky co-founded the Spine Outcomes Research Center – a research group dedicated to understanding and addressing the highly variable health outcomes in patients with musculoskeletal conditions. To that end, he has worked with his clinical colleagues to measure health outcomes and to identify risk factors for poor outcomes. In addition, he has led multidisciplinary teams to successfully develop interventions to support patients during recovery following spine surgery and to treat patients with chronic low back pain.

Dr. Skolasky also supports the academic mission by exposing undergraduate students to the rigors of academic medicine, supervising medical students on research projects, mentoring surgical residents and graduate students on capstone projects, and, working with junior faculty to identify and develop research interests. He serves as a Resident Advisor on our Departmental Research Committee and as a faculty member and Executive Committee Member on our NIH funded T32 program “Training in Orthopaedic Team Science.” Additionally, he is an active participating member of the School of Medicine’s efforts to develop an integrative service line for patients with musculoskeletal conditions, paying particular attention to developing practices and procedures to collect research-grade evidence to support quality improvement and care pathway development and evaluation.

Demonstrating his commitment to service, Dr. Skolasky is Chair of the Diversity Task Force and Governance and Research Project Management Committees, of NASS, and also serves on the Board of Directors. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Quality of Life Research and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Quality of Life Research. He has an h-index of 54 with over 13,614 citations with 23 first author and 15 last author publications.