Education

Professor Aarvold graduated from medical school at the University of Edinburgh in 2002. He has worked in Edinburgh at the Royal Hospital for Sick children (RHSC), Sydney (Australia) as resident medical officer, Nairobi (Kenya) doing paediatric HIV medicine, Oxford as anatomy demonstrator and St George’s Hospital & Royal Marsden Hospital, London for Basic Surgical Training.

He moved to Wessex in 2007 for higher surgical training in trauma and orthopaedic surgery, which included two years of researching stem cell therapy in Professor Richard Oreffo’s tissue engineering lab.

He did a fellowship in paediatric orthopaedic surgery at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada in 2014-15 and was appointed to the trust as consultant surgeon in November 2015.

Experience

Professor Aarvold has sub-speciality expertise in developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), Perthes Disease, paediatric trauma, cerebral palsy and neuromuscular disorders.

He holds weekly clinics dedicated to developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), continuing Professor Nick Clarke’s legacy. Together with Ms Kirsten Elliott and Mr Ed Lindisfarne he manages the Pavlik harness programme for infants with DDH, plus operations for those that come to surgical treatment. He leads the tertiary referral network for Perthes disease.

He also has a specialist interest in cerebral palsy, running dedicated paediatric neuromuscular clinics with Mr Simon Bennet, Mr Darius Rad and Mr Munzir Gaboura, alongside the specialist multi-disciplinary therapy team. He is a member of the British Society for Surgery in Cerebral Palsy (BSSCP) and treats children with the condition using botox injections, soft tissue releases and bone operations.

He has been awarded travelling fellowships to specialist centres in Italy, Australia, Canada and USA.

Research

Professor Aarvold is a clinical-academic and was awarded an honorary chair at the University of Southampton in August 2024. He runs a research programme focusing on developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), Perthes disease, osteonecrosis and cerebral palsy. He supervises research projects at under-graduate and post-graduate level and acts as Principal Investigator on national and multi-national trials.

He sits on the research board of the British Society for Children’s Orthopaedic Surgery (BSCOS) and on the medical advisory boards for the Global Hip Dysplasia Registry (GHDR), the charity DDH-UK and the UK Perthes Kids Foundation.

He has published over 50 scientific papers and has presented his work at over 150 scientific conferences worldwide. He has won awards for best research papers at BSCOS, Gauvain, British Orthopaedic Research Society (BORS) and UK National Stem Cells Network conferences. His thesis on bone tissue engineering was awarded the Syme Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Teaching

Professor Aarvold ran the regional post-graduate education programme for orthopaedic trainee surgeons in Wessex from 2016-2020. He is a current member of the Wessex Surgical Training Committee (STC), sits on training review panels and is an assigned educational supervisor for orthopaedic registrars and fellows. He is a personal academic tutor for medical students and oversees undergraduate education in children's orthopaedics at Southampton Medical School, involved in curriculum development, lecturing and tutorials. He was appointed to the Faculty of Surgical Trainers in 2015 and was voted Wessex orthopaedic Trainer of the Year 2017-18.

Contact

You can contact Mr Aarvold via his secretary Helen Williams - call 023 8120 5758 or email paedorthopaedics@uhs.nhs.uk.