Bryce T. Gillespie, M.D.

Dr. Gillespie is a fellowship-trained orthopedic hand, wrist, elbow, and nerve surgeon providing surgical and nonsurgical care to patients of all ages with sports-related injuries, traumatic injuries, congenital differences, arthritis, and other conditions affecting the arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, and hand.

Dr. Gillespie cares for adults with hand and upper extremity conditions ranging from routine to highly complex. These include sports injuries, traumatic bone/joint/tendon/nerve injuries, nerve compression, and arthritis. Many of these conditions can be treated without surgery, but as a patient, you will receive the best care by being evaluated by a hand surgeon who can develop the correct treatment plan for you—whether that requires surgery or not.

His interests include ligament tears, fractures (broken bones), tendon problems, and arthritis of the hand, wrist, forearm, and elbow. He also has a special interest in nerve injuries and nerve problems throughout the upper extremity, as well as upper extremity weakness due to brachial plexus injuries and spinal cord injuries (tetraplegia). Surgical reconstruction for these injuries includes nerve grafting, nerve transfers, tendon transfers, and other interventions, such as microsurgical tissue transfer, to help improve crucial hand and upper extremity function for these patients.

Dr. Gillespie is also interested in heterotopic ossification (HO) and post-traumatic reconstruction for children and adults. This often involves surgeries to treat elbow, forearm, wrist, and hand injuries that did not heal well or healed with significant stiffness.

Prior to moving to Atlanta, he was an instructor in orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School and an orthopedic hand and upper extremity surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital. There he worked alongside his mentors, Dr. Peter Waters and Dr. Donald Bae. Experience with pediatric and adolescent orthopedics is critical to correctly recognizing and treating injuries and disorders in young patients whose bones and joints are still growing. This includes sports injuries, such as elbow osteochondritis dissecans (OCD), elbow ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) injuries, wrist/triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) injuries, and elbow and wrist pain in throwing and tumbling athletes. Peripheral nerve and brachial plexus injuries in infants and children are of particular interest to Dr. Gillespie, and he is Principal Investigator at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite Hospital for research about using AxoGen cadaveric nerve grafts for brachial plexus injuries.

Dr. Gillespie graduated from the University of Rochester (New York) School of Medicine, where he received his doctor of medicine degree with distinction in research. He completed his orthopedic surgery training in the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program in Boston, Massachusetts. This training included working at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System. He served as chief resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Gillespie subspecialized by completing the Harvard hand and upper extremity surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

He is board-certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and is subspecialty-certified in surgery of the hand. In addition to being a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, he is also a member of the following professional organizations: American Society for Surgery of the Hand, Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, Pediatric Hand Study Group, American Medical Association, Georgia Orthopaedic Society, and Georgia Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Dr. Gillespie has given many presentations and lectures at local and national meetings. His research project from Boston Children’s Hospital about nerve injuries from supracondylar distal humerus (elbow) fractures in children was awarded the Sumner Koch Award for the best clinical paper at the 2014 American Society for Surgery of the Hand annual meeting.

Originally from Edina, Minnesota, Dr. Gillespie graduated from Williams College (Massachusetts) and enjoys calling Atlanta home for his family.