Irvin Oh, FAAOS, MD

Irvin Oh, MD, is chief of Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Surgery and specializes in all aspects of foot and ankle surgeries, including arthritic conditions, deformities, sports injuries, and trauma.

Dr. Oh says he was drawn to his subspecialty because of the importance the foot plays in the body’s structure. “You transmit all of your body weight to the ground through your foot. It needs to be stable and flexible, and we use it in a very balanced way to walk every day,” he says.

Plus, foot and ankle medicine is a dynamic field right now, Dr. Oh adds. “It’s booming with a lot of advancements, especially in total ankle replacement surgery, and other joint sparing procedures,” he says. “There are so many things we can now do to help patients improve their quality of life.”

Dr. Oh also has an interest in biomechanical research. “I create my own model of a patient’s foot to see how surgical intervention will affect the biomechanics of the foot,” he explains. “The foot is a very intricate and complicated structure, where doing one thing can have various consequences to biomechanics. So, we want to individually customize surgery for each patient to optimize function.”

Such models are especially useful for treating complex foot and ankle pathologies, including reconstructing foot and ankle ligaments in patients who had a flat foot with the ankle going sideways, he says.

Dr. Oh is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society. He is an active researcher with a number of federally funded grants and has authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.