The call of duty: Penn’s new chair of Orthopaedics starts a new chapter in a lifetime of service

If Benjamin “Kyle” Potter, MD, who arrived at Penn Medicine last year from a military career to lead the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, has learned anything, it’s that life is full of unexpected detours.

In 2023, Potter completed 22 years of active-duty service to the U.S. Army, retiring as a Colonel. Then, last year, he wrapped up stints heading up the Walter Reed Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University (USU) and the Department of Defense Limb Optimization and Osseointegration Program at USU. He was also chief orthopaedic surgeon for the Amputee Program at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and a consultant for the National Cancer Institute. Yet Potter’s career almost took a very different path.

He chose the U.S. Military Academy at West Point seeking both a challenge and a great education, compounded with the realization that it gave him an even better aid package than the liberal arts college that offered full tuition. Then, while in medical school at the University of Chicago, he reached a handshake deal with his now-wife Michelle, an emergency medicine physician, that they would both choose nonsurgical specialties for the sake of family life.

But then Potter did a medical school rotation with an orthopaedic tumor surgeon. “That one week literally changed my life,” he said. “I loved the idea of being able to operate wherever a tumor was in the body and being really creative in doing complex reconstructions on patients with serious problems and few treatment options.” (Michelle understood and was supportive—but still playfully gives him a hard time about “breaking their deal.”)

A decades-long military medical career was not something Potter originally envisioned when he chose West Point as a young man. “I figured I’d give back to America with five or six years in the Army, then go on with my life,” he said.

He ultimately chose to remain in the military because, by the time he repaid his service obligation, he found that he loved his job and was only a few years from military retirement. Potter’s arrival at Penn now forges a new link in the chain of connections between military medicine and Penn, especially long-established in the Division of Trauma Surgery.

Pushing the envelope

Potter’s experience with both service members and civilian patients gives him a unique perspective on what Penn’s Orthopaedics department needs. His Army service included surgical leadership posts during deployments to Afghanistan and Kuwait, and he has operated on thousands of injured service personnel returning from duties overseas, including more post-9/11 U.S. war casualties with limb loss than any other surgeon. 

“I’ve spent my career working on injured service members stateside, and three deployments taught me how different it feels to operate on someone who stepped on an IED [improvised explosive device] 30 minutes ago versus three days ago,” he said. “The short-term, procedural goals near point of injury are different, but the long-term goal of saving lives, minimizing complications, and optimizing function is the same.”

Through his military career, Potter earned a front-row seat for—and has played a central role in—two decades of unprecedented advancements in limb surgery and bionic prosthetics.

Potter has developed numerous surgical techniques and clinical programs to improve care and quality of life for injured service members and other patients worldwide. His research includes predictive modeling of conditions including musculoskeletal trauma and bone cancers, as well as amputation techniques to improve mobility and decrease pain for patients with trauma-related injuries.

For Potter, amputation is a much more nuanced procedure than is widely believed, and he doesn’t mince words about its importance in orthopedic care: “Amputations are viewed as treatment failures at most hospitals, from regional trauma centers to academic juggernauts, because too many surgeons consider amputation to be a barbaric procedure,” he said. “But patients have many reasons for choosing amputation and, as surgeons, we can make a huge difference in someone's life with amputation, dramatically improving function, restoring quality of life, and relieving pain.”

Of course, Potter is no stranger to bionics, what he calls the “sexy” side of orthopedics, either. He is a world-renowned expert in osseointegration, the direct skeletal attachment of a prosthesis to a residual limb and targeted reinnervation procedures, and other state-of-the-art surgeries.

What’s ahead at Penn Orthopaedics

Potter describes his vision for the Department of Orthopaedics as a blend of preserving traditional strengths and expanding and innovating in key areas. “We will grow our clinical department to expand focused, subspecialty excellence and our quality programs—if we can’t measure something, we can’t improve it—to both highlight and strengthen our great outcomes,” he said.

But his most cherished plan involves the work that has engaged him for his entire career: all aspects of limb reconstruction. “I think we can make Penn the best in the country in this arena, whatever a patient’s needs are,” he said. “I want patients to think of us for definitive reconstruction, whether that’s from devastating limb trauma, peripheral vascular disease, lymphedema after breast cancer, sarcoma in an extremity, or challenges following either limb salvage or amputation done at another institution.”

Potter likens his new role leading the department to being a good auto mechanic. “You’ve got to get in there and look under the hood to tinker around with it,” he said. “You can't make a car run better from across the parking lot or just by putting some new shiny hubcaps on it.”

Potter believes most of the necessary resources are already in place and thriving at Penn, including the Hand Transplant Program, the Nerve Center, the Orthopaedic Trauma and Fracture Program, the Orthoplastic Limb Salvage Center, and the Sarcoma Program. “The Venn diagram of all these amazing programs and centers overlaps a bit, but I see a gap in the middle [of the diagram] for limb loss,” he said. “I think the time is right to bring all these areas together with excellent clinical care and research.”

Leaving the military after a lifetime of service is another detour that has had its challenges, Potter says. “One of the best things about being in the military was the shared sense of purpose and being part of something bigger than yourself,” he explained. “I knew I could never go to a civilian job where I felt like just a cog in a machine. But Penn Medicine offers a sense of being a team and a family, too, and I value that immensely.”