Routt earns WOA Lifetime Achievement Award
The Western Orthopaedic Association honored Milton “Chip” Routt, MD, professor and Andrew R. Burgess, MD, Endowed Chair in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, with the organization’s 2025 Blair C. Filler, MD, Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Western Orthopaedic Association Lifetime Achievement Award is named in honor of Dr. Blair Filler, who served the WOA from 1970-78 on committees for registration, by-laws, nominations, and planning and development. He served as treasurer and historian in 2000 and as president of the organization in 2003. During his presidency, Filler is credited with elevating the WOA to prominence by re-organizing the leadership, governance, and oversight.
The Lifetime Achievement Award honors those special individuals who have throughout their career demonstrated and promoted the highest values of the WOA in their leadership, service, education, and professional relationships. The award is given annually to one member of the WOA selected by the organization’s board of directors.
“Dr. Filler was a ball of fire, determination, fairness, and an enthusiastic advocate for education,” Routt said. “I’ll do my very best to carry his memory and his legacy forward.”
Routt currently serves as the president of the Surgeon’s Council and co-chair of the Quality Assurance Committee as well as the Medical Executive Committee at Memorial Hermann Hospital – Texas Medical Center. He received his medical degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and completed a surgical internship and orthopaedic residency at Vanderbilt University. He also completed an orthopaedic traumatology fellowship at the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, where he remained on faculty from 1989-2012.
Routt has received a variety of awards including the 2019 Leonard Tow Aard for Humanism and Education, the 2018 Memorial Hermann Hospital Physician of the Year Award, and the Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus Award at UTMB. He is a member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, the American Orthopedic Association, the Orthopedic Trauma Association, the AO Alumni Association and the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.