PETER POON – Shoulder & elbow specialist
Mr. Peter Poon BHB, MBChB, FRACS, FNZOA is a New Zealand trained orthopaedic surgeon in Auckland who specialises in the shoulder and elbow. He is the current (2017-2019) President of the New Zealand Shoulder and Elbow society. Qualifying as an orthopaedic surgeon in 2002 and dedicating his practice exclusively to the shoulder and elbow, Peter is highly experienced in treating all conditions of the shoulder and elbow. He has performed more than 10,000 surgeries of the shoulder and elbow. Data from the New Zealand Joint Registry shows he performs the largest number of shoulder joint replacements in this country.
Peter was raised in humble circumstances in the Solomon Islands. In 1985, he was fortunate to be awarded a full scholarship to study medicine at the University of Auckland. In addition to other
numerous prizes, he won the prestigious Eric Hector Goodfellow memorial prize for coming top of his class. This featured on the March 23 1988
“Student wins against the odds”. Qualifying as an orthopaedic surgeon in 2002, he travelled abroad for further training in centres of excellence in shoulder and elbow surgery. Shoulder and Elbow fellowships were undertaken at the Royal North Shore Hospital (University of Sydney), Peter Lougheed Centre (University of Calgary) and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (University of Oxford). He returned to practice as orthopaedic surgeon in New Zealand in 2005. In addition to a consultant position at North Shore hospital, he works in private practice at the Shakespeare Orthopaedic Institute on the North Shore and performs surgery at the Southern Cross North Harbour hospital. In 2008, he was awarded the
American British Canadian (ABC) fellowship, the most prestigious award in the English speaking orthopaedic associations.
He is an educator and regularly gives teaching to family doctors, physiotherapists and doctors specialising in orthopaedic surgery. He was a past selector of candidates for the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association National training programme and in 2019 was appointed to the court of examiners of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. In 2018, he was awarded the John Morris award for the best educator in orthopaedic surgery in Auckland.
He is active in research and innovation. He has
published extensively in prestigious orthopaedic journals and his work is regularly cited. He is an editorial reviewer for the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery and The Journal of Shoulder and Elbow. He has written a chapter on the use of Titanium augments in shoulder joint replacement in the
Textbook of Shoulder Surgery (Springer). He regularly
attends conferences to gain new knowledge and also frequently presents his own research and new ideas at conferences. He has
developed new surgical techniques in orthopaedic surgery. He is a consultant to an international shoulder prosthesis company (LimaCorporate spa) and is involved with designing and improving the SMR artificial shoulder prosthesis. He has
1-patented design.
He is known internationally as an expert in shoulder surgery and is regularly invited to give lectures all over the world. In 2018, he was privileged to be the only surgeon from Australia and New Zealand to be invited faculty at the
Nice Shoulder course in France, the largest shoulder course in the world. In September 2019, he will be faculty with other internationally renowned shoulder surgeons at the International Congress of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery ICSES in Buenos Aires where he will be giving the opening lecture on complex shoulder joint replacement. International surgeons frequently visit him to learn about shoulder surgery and he supervises the
shoulder and elbow fellowship at North Shore hospital.
