About Thomas Barber, MD

Thomas C. Barber, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in total joint replacement. He has a special interest and expertise in total hip and total knee replacement, including difficult and challenging primary replacement and revision surgery. He also has expertise in surface replacement arthroplasty and minimally invasive total knee surgery.

Dr. Barber served as chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) Council on Advocacy from 2013 to 2017. He has long been active in the Academy, serving as the chair of the Board of Councilors in 2010, as an AAOS Board member from 2007 to 2010, and as a member of the Health Care Delivery Committee and the Prevention of Medical Errors Committee. He has also been a board member of the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR).

Dr. Barber received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard and a medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed an internship in general surgery at the University of Rochester and a residency in orthopedic surgery at Boston University.

Dr. Barber, who had previously served on the UCSF faculty, recently returned to the Bay Area after serving for the past three years as deputy physician-in-chief of Perioperative Services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City during the pandemic. In addition to his service at both UCSF and Sloan Kettering, he also had a long career at Kaiser Permanente, where he helped launch the Kaiser Permanente Total Joint Registry and pioneered patient-to-physician messaging in the Kaiser system.

His research interests include using registries to improve the knowledge base and surgical outcomes in total hip and knee surgery. His most recently accepted paper details the effectiveness of different types of cement in primary total knee surgery.