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Meet Dr. DiFelice

Specialty

Hospital Affiliations

Industry Relationships

  • Arthrex, Inc. – Consultant; Royalties
  • BetterHealthcare – Ownership Interest
  • Embody, Inc. – Consultant; Ownership Interest
  • HS2, LLC – Ownership Interest

Gregory S. DiFelice, MD

Dr. Gregory S. DiFelice is a fellowship-trained orthopaedic surgeon specializing in Sports Traumatology and Joint Reconstruction Surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He also holds an academic appointment at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University as an Associate Attending Orthopaedic Surgeon. His main surgical focus is on the treatment of the knee, shoulder, and hip. Using both non-surgical and surgical methods, he strives to utilize the latest technologies to improve patient outcomes, while preserving their native tissues. He refers to his customized approach as Preservation First® and this guides his practice. His philosophy, developed over 20+ years in practice, is to use surgery as a last resort, and if surgery is absolutely necessary, to perform the most conservative surgery that will give the best, most long-lasting results for the patient. This delicate balancing of the risks and benefits of surgery for each individual is, in essence, the art of surgery.

Dr. DiFelice is a surgical innovator and has developed several cutting edge surgical techniques that allow him to save a patients’ torn ligaments, rather than replacing them, which is the current standard of care. His approach is called Ligament Preservation and includes conservative, minimally invasive techniques such as Primary Repair and Primary Repair with Augmentation. By saving the patients’ native ligament tissues, he greatly reduces surgical injury to the patient, and thus diminishes the recovery time and restores more of the natural function of the knee. Currently, for 50-75% of his ACL injured patients, he is able to save most, if not all, of the patients’ native tissue thereby diminishing the need for grafts. He uses ACL Reconstruction, the replacing of the torn ligament with a graft, that is considered the standard approach throughout the world, only as a last resort when there is little to no native tissue available to save. As the surgical innovator of his modern-day preservation approach, he has published and lectured extensively, both domestically and internationally, on this and other topics.

Admittedly, not all ligaments, nor all joints for that matter, can be saved, and Dr. DiFelices’ Preservation First® to surgery is also evident in his approach to arthritic joints. Rather than the standard approach of the majority of surgeons, that everyone with arthritis gets a total joint replacement surgery, his approach is more nuanced and is customized for each patient, based on their health, activity level and particular pattern of arthritis. He is an expert in both realignment osteotomy and robotic unicompartmental arthroplasty, two techniques that allow the patient to avoid the larger, more morbid total joint arthroplasty when in their best interests. In addition, he is also an expert in both total hip and total knee arthroplasty, having performed thousands of these procedures over his 20+-year career, which allows him to provide patients with the treatment option that is best for them.

Dr. DiFelice was born and raised in northern New Jersey. He completed his undergraduate degree at Princeton University while simultaneously earning 3 Varsity letters playing football. He then continued on to New Jersey Medical School, where he graduated as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He did his residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. He then completed a fellowship in Sports Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. While there, he worked as an assistant to the team physicians for the St. Louis Rams, the St. Louis Blues and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Once Dr. DiFelice finished his training, he was the creator and Director of the Division of Sports Medicine and Joint Reconstruction Surgery for the North Bronx Healthcare Network for approximately 16 years. Prior to his return to the Hospital for Special Surgery in 2010, he also worked in conjunction with the Ranawat Orthopaedic Center at Lenox Hill Hospital for five years.

Among his many accolades, Dr. DiFelice is a member of numerous state and national medical societies. His athletic accomplishments are also numerous and range from State Regional Champion High School baseball to Division I collegiate football, to domestic and international Rugby player to Alpine Ski Instructor. As such, patients of his can take comfort in knowing that they are not only being treated by an esteemed physician, but by a fellow athlete as well.

  • Associate Attending, Hospital for Special Surgery
  • Associate Professor of Clinical Orthopaedic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College
  • Associate Attending, New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center
  • The Associate of Bone and Joint Surgeons Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research Multimedia Award 2011
  • Patient Choice Award – Vitals.com, 2008 & 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018
  • Teacher of the Year Award – Montefiore Orthopaedic Residency Program 2002 & 2005
  • American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
  • American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons
  • American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine
  • Arthroscopy Association of North America
  • European Society for Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy (ESSKA)
  • International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine (ISAKOS)
  • Medical Society of the State of New York
  • New York Athletic Club – team doctor
  • New York County Medical Society
  • New York State Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons
  • Play Rugby USA
  • Princeton University
  • Peer Reviewer (multiple journals)
  • Rutgers University
  • Washington University Orthopaedic Surgery (St. Louis)
  • Winged Foot Rugby Foundation
  • Xavier High School – team doctor
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