The Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) will welcome Coleen S. Sabatini, MD, MPH, in April as the featured speaker for the annual E. Dennis Lyne Day.
Dr. Sabatini’s presentation, “Global Orthopaedics: Addressing Musculoskeletal Conditions in Children in Low-Resource Settings – One Surgeon’s Path,” is scheduled for 6:15 a.m. on Thursday, April 30, 2026, in TBL 2 at the W.E. Upjohn M.D. Campus in downtown Kalamazoo. Dr. Sabatini will also give a second presentation – “Closing the Gaps: Health Equity in Musculoskeletal Care” – at 9 a.m. on April 30.
E. Dennis Lyne Day is named in honor of Dr. Lyne, who dedicated his more than 40 years as an orthopaedic surgeon to caring for children and training young surgeons. In 1991, Dr. Lyne came to Kalamazoo where he served as chief of the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery and led the orthopaedic surgery residency program at the Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies (MSU/KCMS), a predecessor to WMed.
Dr. Sabatini’s visit is made possible through by the E. Dennis Lyne Orthopaedic Visting Professor Endowment at WMed, which provides support for the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery to bring to Kalamazoo visiting professors who give the medical students, residents, and faculty a cutting-edge view in all areas of orthopaedic surgery and care.
Dr. Sabatini is a professor and vice chair of Orthopaedic Surgery in the Department of Othopaedic Surgery at the University of California San Francisco. Her work focuses on the care of children with musculoskeletal problems domestically and abroad, and ensuring that all children have access to high quality, safe, and affordable orthopaedic care. As a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Sabatini is based at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland (BCHO) in Oakland, California.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California San Diego where she studied biology and dance. Later, she earned her MD degree and Masters of Public Health from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, respectively. She served as an Intern in General Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and then completed her residency training at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program. She served as Chief Resident in her last year of residency and as Editor of "The Orthopaedic Journal" at Harvard Medical School for four years. Dr. Sabatini completed her fellowship training in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She has been a member of the faculty at UCSF since 2010.
As a clinician, Dr. Sabatini focuses on a wide range of pediatric orthopaedic conditions, with particular interests in pediatric trauma/fractures, clubfoot and other pediatric foot and limb deformities. Her research, meanwhile, focuses on health disparities, global health, pediatric trauma prevention and treatment, clinical outcomes, and improving access to quality care for children with musculoskeletal conditions, particularly for those in low-resource environments.
For more than 15 years, Dr. Sabatini has also been committed to collaborative education, mentorship, and advocacy to increase the number of underrepresented minorities and women pursuing careers in orthopaedic surgery. Dr. Sabatini’s primary passion is health community, culture, and engagement and her work in health equity is rooted in capacity-building through research and education. Dr. Sabatini serves as associate director of the UCSF Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia (CHESA) and is also the co-director of UCSF's Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology.
Dr. Sabatini and colleagues in Uganda have built a fellowship training program in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery that allows surgeons to develop expertise in caring specifically for children and helps meet a huge need for care in a region where there are very few orthopaedic surgeons and even fewer experts in orthopaedic care for children despite the large portion of the population they represent. In recognition of her outstanding efforts in global health and capacity building, Dr. Sabatini was honored with the Humanitarian Award by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 2025, as well as the Humanitarian Award from the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America in 2024.