NASS Names New President

During the 28th Annual Meeting of the North American Spine Society (NASS), William C. Watters III (pictured left), M.D., was named NASS president for 2013-14. Watters is an orthopedic surgeon from Houston, Texas.

Watters replaces Charles Mick, M.D., known for his career interest and involvement in health policy. Watters has served on the NASS board since 1987, and is a founding member of the Evidence-based Guidelines Committee which he chaired from 2003-07 and a founding member and chair of the Registry Development Committee. For the past year, he served as vice president of NASS under Mick.

Watters said that he hopes “to help guide the world’s largest multispecialty spinal society in a meaningful manner to achieve a series of goals: Bring to fruition a number of important programs already in development for NASS’s membership, including the development of a spinal registry and a recognition program; Lead NASS in its continuing efforts to utilize ethical and professional principles in advocating for the provision and coverage of quality spine care. One way to do this is to create evidence-based coverage decisions for spinal treatments that our members can use to advocate for themselves and their patients in the new healthcare environment; and increase the imprimatur of NASS as the world’s primer spine society through efforts of collaboration and globalization to further benefit our membership.”

Watters is a graduate of the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. and has done residencies in both internal medicine and orthopedic surgery and had advanced training in spinal surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa. On coming to Houston, he served for five years as chairman of the department of orthopedic surgery at the Kelsey Seybold Clinic. Since that time, he has practiced orthopedic spinal surgery at the Bone and Joint Clinic of Houston. Watters is a clinical associate professor for the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas and the department of orthopedic surgery of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Watters has authored numerous articles and book chapters on diseases of the spine and is a national and international speaker on spinal disease. He has used his expertise on evidence-based medicine to chair major committees for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery (AAOS) and NASS. In addition, he is the past research council chair of NASS, serves on the board of the American Board of Spine Surgery and, and is a past-president of The Texas Spine Society. He sits on the Board of Advisors for World Spine Care and for Palladian. Watters also sits on the editorial advisory board for The Spine Journal and serves as a reviewer for Spine and the Journal of the Spinal Arthroplasty Society.