Michelle Anne James, M.D., is Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at Shriners Hospitals for Children — Northern California and Chief of Pediatric Orthopaedics in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of California Davis Health System.
Specializing in the treatment of children’s hand and arm conditions, including malformations and neuromuscular problems, Dr. James is a noted Pediatric Hand Surgeon. Dr. James serves on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Orthopedic Surgeons, The Perry Initiative, and Orthopaedics Overseas. She is Deputy Editor for Hand and Upper Extremity for the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
She is also Principal Investigator on two multi-center clinical research studies of hand function in children and has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals, as well as contributing to chapters to surgical textbooks. She is conducting research on the functional outcomes of the treatment of brachial-plexus birth palsy, upper-extremity cerebral palsy and tetraplegia, in addition to researching the use of motion analysis in the upper extremity.
Dr. James has worked for Shriners Hospitals for Children – Northern California since 1989. She is a Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC Davis and UC San Francisco. Her professional affiliations include the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, the American Orthopaedic Association, and the Ruth Jackson Society, for which she served as President in 2012. Dr. James organizes and attends a pediatric hand surgery service trip to a pediatric hospital in Managua, Nicaragua twice per year, and has served as a mentor for many pre-medical and medical students and orthopaedic surgery residents.