PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Stretching His Interests Physiatrist David C. Morgenroth, MD, is a physician-scientist and educator focused on improving the function and quality of life of people with limb loss
O&P Almanac introduces individuals who have undertaken O&P-focused research projects. Here, you will get to know colleagues and healthcare professionals who have carried out studies and gathered quantitative and/ or qualitative data related to orthotics and prosthetics, and find out what it takes to become an O&P researcher.
JANUARY 2021 | O&P ALMANAC
ROWING UP AS A 5-foot-7-inch
basketball player in New York City, David C. Morgenroth, MD, spent a lot of time training to jump higher—“a vital skill to earn respect in the New York City playgrounds,” he explains. So it came naturally that he decided to study gait biomechanics during his undergraduate years at University of California at Berkeley. While there, he worked for two years in a biomechanics lab studying the stiffness properties of the human ankle related to walking, running, and jumping. After earning his bachelor’s degree in human biodynamics in 1996, Morgenroth moved back to New York City to teach middle school math and science at a public school. It was this experience as a teacher—coupled with his research studies as an undergraduate—that seeded his interest in academic medicine and led him to earn his doctor of medicine from the State University of New York at Brooklyn College of Medicine in 2003. Fast forward 17 years, and Morgenroth now puts all of his interests to good use in academic, clinical, and research roles. “I am a physiatrist—a physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) physician—with a background in gait biomechanics,” he explains. At the University of Washington (UW), he is
an associate professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. He also serves in several positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System’s Seattle campus: as a staff physician; an investigator for the VA’s Rehabilitation Research and Development Center for Limb Loss and Mobility (CLiMB); and an associate program director for the Amputee Rehabilitation Fellowship. “As an academic physician, my professional roles include clinical care, research, teaching, administrative leadership, and service,” he explains. “My goal as a physician-scientist is to ground my research in key questions most relevant to the patients I am caring for in the clinical setting, and subsequently to inform my clinical practice with high-quality research findings.”
Embracing O&P
Morgenroth discovered PM&R during medical school—a field he deemed “a great match for my interests in neuromusculoskeletal physiology and in helping restore function to individuals with disabling conditions.” During his residency training, he decided to focus on limb loss rehabilitation: “Not only did I enjoy working with this patient
PHOTO: David C. Morgenroth, MD
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