Rate My Professor Justin Chou

Justin Chou, MBChB (Otago) FRACS (Orth), serves as a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery and Anaesthesia at the University of Otago, Wellington, with his appointment noted in university calendars from 2019 onwards. A graduate of the University of Otago Medical School, he completed his MBChB in 2004. Chou undertook orthopaedic surgery training at Wellington Hospital, achieving Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in Orthopaedics in 2016. He further specialized through fellowships in hand surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and Middlemore Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, as well as an upper limb surgery fellowship at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He is a Fellow of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association and maintains an active clinical practice as an upper limb specialist at Wellington Orthopaedic and Sports Surgeons in Wellington, New Zealand.

Chou's research contributions focus on surgical outcomes and post-operative pain management. He co-authored 'Outcome of carpal tunnel decompression with pre-surgical ultrasound assessment of the median nerve cross-sectional area,' published in the Journal of Clinical Orthopaedics and Trauma in 2021, evaluating ultrasound's role in predicting decompression success. More recently, he participated in large-scale international collaborations examining opioid use following surgery. Notable publications include 'Predicting opioid consumption after surgical discharge: a multinational derivation and validation study using a foundation model' in npj Digital Medicine (2025), 'Patterns of opioid use after surgical discharge' (medRxiv, 2023), and 'The impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: a multi-specialty prospective cohort study in 25 countries' (2023). These studies, involving contributors from multiple institutions including the University of Otago, analyze opioid prescribing patterns, prediction models, and alternatives to opioids, contributing to evidence-based practices in post-surgical care across diverse settings. Chou's dual roles in clinical surgery and academia support medical education and research in orthopaedics and anaesthesia at the University of Otago's Division of Health Sciences.