Dr Rhys Clark

Introduction

Dr Rhys Clark is an orthopaedic surgeon in Perth, with fellowships from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) and the Australian Orthopaedic Association (FAOrthA). His practice is knee and hip replacement: robotic total and partial knee replacement on the Mako and VELYS systems, hip replacement including the minimally invasive direct anterior approach, and revision arthroplasty. He has performed more than 900 hip and knee replacements since January 2024, consulting at St John of God Medical Clinic in Murdoch and at Mandurah, and operating at St John of God Murdoch and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

“My surgeries are often robotic-assisted and, when it comes to hip and knee replacements, I complete a virtual pre-operation before making any incisions. This additional support and planning mean that we’re two steps ahead before we begin,” says Dr Rhys Clark.

Rhys’s approach to orthopaedic surgery is focused on you and achieving a freedom of movement.

Rhys’s surgical career is balanced between hip and knee replacements, complex revision surgery, bone and soft tissue surgery, and orthopaedic oncology. While these areas are his focus, Rhys’s journey towards this speciality career didn’t begin as you would expect. Rhys spent endless hours tinkering in his childhood shed, fascinated by intricate mechanics and the physics of everyday objects. This fascination continues into his surgical career, as he brings together an instinctual drive for mechanical discovery and a passion for human movement.

“I always needed to figure out how something worked. It wasn’t enough that it did, I needed to know how. That fascination has never really left me — I just work in a theatre now instead of a backyard shed.”

Training

Rhys completed his medical degree with honours at the University of Notre Dame Australia, and his surgical training through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) and the Australian Orthopaedic Association (FAOrthA).

He then undertook two separate fellowships at The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham, a specialist orthopaedic hospital in the United Kingdom — the first in revision arthroplasty, the second in sarcoma surgery. Both remain the most specialised parts of his practice today. Revision surgery and bone tumour work are low-volume, high-complexity fields, and both are concentrated in a small number of centres worldwide.

Before medicine, Rhys trained in medical imaging, holding a Master of Medical Radiation Science and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Medical Imaging. That background is directly relevant to CT-planned robotic knee replacement, where the quality of the operation is bounded by the quality of a plan built entirely from a CT dataset.

Clinical focus areas

As an orthopaedic surgeon, Rhys is fascinated by the art and science of human movement. This duality is what drives Rhys in each of these speciality areas.

• Total hip replacement (including the anterior approach)
• Robotic total and partial knee replacement
• ACL reconstruction and knee arthroscopy
• Orthopaedic oncology surgery
• Patella stabilisation and re-alignment surgery
• Shoulder arthroscopy
• Revision arthroplasty
• Trauma services

The practice in numbers

Drawn from Rhys’s surgical records.

Around 60% of that work is knee replacement, making it the larger half of the practice. Sixty of those procedures were revisions — replacing a joint replacement that has loosened, worn or become infected — including complex reconstruction where bone has been lost.

Most operating is done at St John of God Murdoch, alongside public lists at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

Figures current to August 2026.