Deryk G. Jones, MD

Dr. Deryk Jones is the Section Head of Sports Medicine and Cartilage Restoration at the Ochsner Sports Medicine Institute. He served as the head team physician for the New Orleans Saints NFL team from 2006-2017 receiving a Super Bowl ring after their historic 2009-2010 season. He is currently a team physician for the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team. He also covers numerous college and high school teams throughout the New Orleans and surrounding parishes.

Dr. Jones received his Bachelor Degrees in Science and Philosophy from Emory University where he played collegiate soccer and then received a Doctorate of Medicine from Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Jones completed an internship in general surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital followed by residency training in orthopaedic surgery at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedics Residency Program in Boston; on completion of this training he was given the distinguished honor of being selected to serve as chief resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Jones went on to receive additional training in shoulder surgery and sports medicine completing a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Jones is board certified through 2020 and has subspecialty certification in sports medicine through 2019. He is a full professor in Orthopaedic surgery at Ochsner Clinical School and the University of Queensland, Australia.

On completion of training he joined the faculty of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Tulane University School of Medicine with an adjunct appointment in the Biomechanics Department and currently still holds an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor at Tulane University. Dr. Jones began research while at Tulane University in cutting edge basic science research on cartilage metabolism and regeneration, bone-tendon healing, periosteum cell characterization as well as softball and baseball throwing mechanics. Currently, as Section head at Ochsner’s Sports Medicine Institute his research has focused on carefully examining clinical outcomes in a variety of operative and nonoperative treatments of sports medicine related injuries. He also has been involved in national policy decisions regarding sports medicine over the last 6 years while serving as the Louisiana state representative for the Council of Delegates in the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine (AOSSM). One role that he has been tasked with as a result of this appointment involves carefully designing and publishing the Preparticipation Physical Examination (PPE) whose primary objective is to review, evaluate and write the 3rd and 4th edition of the PPE Manuscript published by McGraw-Hill Company. This publication serves as a reference source and provides the PPE forms used by all schools at the high school, College and Professional levels for athletic clearance throughout the United States (U.S.).

As one of the founding members of the Cartilage Repair Centers of America, Dr. Jones has been engaged in the study and treatment of articular cartilage injuries particularly focusing on current and future biologic reconstructive techniques. In a landmark article published in the prestigious Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in 2006, Dr. Jones described a novel technique using replacement xenographic tissue to treat bone and cartilage defects in the knee. Currently, as a prinicipal investigator, he has just begun a pivotal phase III Food and Drug Administration study examining the use of a novel 3rd generation articular cartilage implant, Neocart®. The Ochsner Sports Medicine Institute is the only site offering this technique to the community throughout the entire Southeastern U.S. He has also written and performed research on stem cell therapy and possible clinical applications of this technology.

Dr. Jones is ranked in the top 1% by the U.S. News and World Report in 2012 in the field of sports Medicine and orthopaedic surgery. Clinically he subspecializes in sports medicine and cartilage regeneration treating pathologic conditions of the shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle. Some specific techniques offered by Dr. Jones are meniscal transplantation, Matrix autologous chondrocyte implantation (Carticel®) regenerating damaged articular cartilage in the knee, shoulder and ankle joints. In addition, by using cadaveric tissues he uses a technique termed fresh osteochondral allograft replacement to replace damaged bone and cartilage injuries in situations of extensive joint pathology of the shoulder, hip, knee and ankle. An extension in the treatment of this patient group involves performing minimally invasive joint replacement in patients. Dr. Jones regularly resurfaces the shoulder, elbow, hip and knee joint compartments through small incisions preserving muscles, ligaments and tendons around the joints. He currently uses an arthroplasty technique that utilizes a preoperative CT model to create a custom partial or total knee implant anatomically matching the patient’s anatomy.

Dr. Jones also has quite extensive experience in the use of biologics such as platelet-rich plasma, Stem cells from muscle and fat sources as well as umbilical cord injections. He is currently involved in cutting edge research on these treatment options as well as other multi-centered studies assessing the efficacy of scaffolds and autologous chondrocytes to regenerate damaged articular cartilage surfaces. Further, he was on the sentinel paper demonstrating the efficacy of a new long acting steroid preparation recently approved by the FDA for treatment of osteoarthritic knee joints.

Arthroscopic assisted techniques are offered to treat traumatic fractures (broken bones) of the hip, knee, shoulder, elbow and ankle. Further, he has extensive experience in arthroscopic surgery for shoulder instability and rotator cuff tears as well as hip labral and bone impingement pathology. Arthroscopic assisted treatment of knee ligament injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears using the anatomically based “double-bundle” ACL technique is also offered by Dr. Jones. One of the most complex set of conditions in sports medicine to treat is injury to the elbow joint. Dr. Jones has published articles in the most prestigious journals and books in the U.S. on all of these topics. Several articles have studied injuries to the elbow. Using this information, Dr. Jones teams with the Ochsner Sports Medicine Institutes professional physical therapy staff to treat ligament, tendon and cartilage injuries of the elbow in the throwing athlete.