NASS News: New President Takes Charge

The North American Spine Society (NASS) has a new commander-in-chief.

During its 30th Annual Meeting this week in Chicago, Ill., the organization installed Christopher M. Bono, M.D., as its 2015-2016 president. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was accepted into a seven-year BA/MD program at CUNY Brooklyn College and SUNY Downstate Medical School, receiving his medical degree in 1996. Bono completed a general surgery internship and orthopedic surgery residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry-New Jersey (UMDNJ) in Newark.

“It has been my privilege to serve NASS in many different capacities,” Bono said. “It will be an honor to help lead this organization, along with a board of directors and group of committee chairs and members. The next 12 months assuredly will present some unique and unanticipated challenges. I look forward to facing them head-on with our membership.”

Bono identified three projects that he intends to focus on over the next year: the North American Spine Foundation, the NASS Registry pilot project and coverage policy recommendations.

The Foundation, Bono said, needs NASS members’ help in publicizing the need to reduce spine-related disabilities in the United States. It also could use financial support: “The Foundation will fund specific projects—studies that are urgently needed but are too expensive for individuals to self-fund, not ‘metallic’ enough to attract industry, and perhaps not the best fit for government funding,” he explained.

Bono predicts the registry pilot will grow from a seed into a “fruitful and colorful tree,” helping the spine industry foster an effective tracking system for treatment results and overall condition history. “The NASS registry pilot is underway and working well. Not part of the pilot? Don’t feel left out. You’ll get your chance and it won’t be soon enough with imminent requirements for clinical outcomes collections by government mandate. Including both non-operative and operative patients, the NASS registry will offer the spine community a unique opportunity to track both treatment results as well as the natural history of spinal conditions.”

With its first coverage e-book now available, Bono is hoping the society’s coverage policy recommendations will “have an increasingly deep impact on insurance policies.” He expects the group’s Coverage Committee (which Bono recently chaired) to take the work it already has accomplished “to the next level.”

After completing his surgical residency at UMDNJ, Bono spend a year at the University of Southern California-San Diego with Steve Garfin, M.D., and Christopher Kauffman, M.D. He then was recruited as an academic faculty member of Boston University School of Medicine’s Orthopaedic Surgery Department by former chairman Tom Einhorn, M.D. After four years, Bono was recruited by Mitch Harris, M.D., and Tom Thornhill, M.D., to lead the Spine Division of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Orthopaedic Surgery Department (where he currently practices). Bono serves as co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital-Brigham and Women’s Hospital Orthopaedic Spine Surgery Fellowship and as co-director of the BWH Comprehensive Spine Center.

Bono currently serves as the deputy editor for CME for the Journal of the Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and is a past deputy editor for The Spine Journal. He joined NASS in 2002 and has been involved in many committees over the last 13 yers. He has been included in “America’s Best Doctors,” and has received many Patient’s Choice Awards.

In addition, Bono has co-edited five textbooks in orthopedic and spinal care and currently is co-editing three more. He has more than 140 peer-reviewed publications cited on PubMed, and has co-authored nearly 100 book chapters. He has worked closely with many other professional organizations, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, International Society for the Advancement of Spinal Surgery, AO Spine, and the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine.