Top Orthopedic Surgery journals
The leading journals in orthopedic surgery, ranked within their own field — not across all of science. The measure is computed from open data; how it works, and its limits, are set out in our method.
Scope: Orthopedics, Podiatry, Traumatology (NLM Broad Subject Terms).
Grouped by quality band, best first, and listed alphabetically within each band — the bands are the ranking; we do not order named journals against one another.
Top 5%
14
- Accident; analysis and prevention
- Acta orthopaedica
- Advances in wound care
- Arthroscopy : the journal of arthroscopic & related surgery : official publication of the Arthroscopy Association of North America and the International Arthroscopy Association
- Dental traumatology : official publication of International Association for Dental Traumatology
- International wound journal
- Journal of orthopaedics and traumatology : official journal of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology
- Journal of shoulder and elbow surgery
- The bone & joint journal
- The Journal of arthroplasty
- The Journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume
- The Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
- The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
- Trauma, violence & abuse
Top 10%
11
- Clinics in orthopedic surgery
- European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society
- Head & face medicine
- Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention
- International orthopaedics
- JBJS reviews
- Journal of neurotrauma
- Journal of trauma & dissociation : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD)
- Spine
- The journal of trauma and acute care surgery
- The Orthopedic clinics of North America
Top 25%
20
- Archives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery
- BMC musculoskeletal disorders
- Chinese journal of traumatology = Zhonghua chuang shang za zhi
- Clinical orthopaedics and related research
- Foot & ankle international
- Gait & posture
- Injury
- International journal of injury control and safety promotion
- Journal of injury & violence research
- Journal of orthopaedic research : official publication of the Orthopaedic Research Society
- Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research
- Journal of orthopaedic trauma
- Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews
- Orthopaedic surgery
- Orthopaedics & traumatology, surgery & research : OTSR
- Skeletal radiology
- Spine deformity
- The Journal of hand surgery
- The Knee
- Topics in spinal cord injury rehabilitation
Top 50%
24
- Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
- Clinical spine surgery
- European journal of orthopaedic surgery & traumatology : orthopédie traumatologie
- Foot and ankle clinics
- Foot and ankle surgery : official journal of the European Society of Foot and Ankle Surgeons
- Hand clinics
- Hip international : the journal of clinical and experimental research on hip pathology and therapy
- International journal of orthopaedic and trauma nursing
- Journal of foot and ankle research
- Journal of orthopaedic science : official journal of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association
- Journal of orthopaedic surgery
- Journal of pediatric orthopedics
- Journal of trauma nursing : the official journal of the Society of Trauma Nurses
- Musculoskeletal care
- Musculoskeletal surgery
- Orthopedic nursing
- Orthopedics
- PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation
- Seminars in musculoskeletal radiology
- The international journal of lower extremity wounds
- The Journal of hand surgery, European volume
- The Journal of head trauma rehabilitation
- The journal of knee surgery
- Traffic injury prevention
Unranked
27
- Acta chirurgiae orthopaedicae et traumatologiae Cechoslovaca
- Acta orthopaedica Belgica
- Acta orthopaedica et traumatologica turcica
- Acta ortopédica mexicana
- Clinics in podiatric medicine and surgery
- Der Orthopäde
- Der Unfallchirurg
- Die Orthopädie
- Die Unfallchirurgie
- Foot & ankle specialist
- Hand : official journal of the American Association for Hand Surgery
- JBJS case connector
- Joint diseases and related surgery
- Journal of burn care & research : official publication of the American Burn Association
- Journal of pediatric orthopedics. Part B
- Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association
- Operative Orthopädie und Traumatologie
- Ortopediia travmatologiia i protezirovanie
- Prosthetics and orthotics international
- Revista española de cirugía ortopédica y traumatología
- Seminars in arthroplasty
- The Foot
- The Journal of foot and ankle surgery : official publication of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons
- Torture : quarterly journal on rehabilitation of torture victims and prevention of torture
- Ulusal travma ve acil cerrahi dergisi = Turkish journal of trauma & emergency surgery : TJTES
- Veterinary and comparative orthopaedics and traumatology : V.C.O.T
- Zeitschrift für Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie
96 ranked journals. Computed 2026-09-04, citation window 2019–2022. Journals too new or too small to rank fairly are not listed — “unranked” is not a zero.
Questions
- Where are sports-medicine and rheumatology journals?
- Sports medicine and rheumatology are separate NLM disciplines with their own lists. A journal is ranked in its home field, so a title devoted to sports injuries or joint disease may appear under Sports Medicine or Rheumatology rather than here.
- Does a higher band mean better surgery or stronger evidence?
- No. The bands rank journals by citation reach within orthopaedics, not the quality of any single study or technique. Use them as one signal, alongside study design and your own reading.
- How current is this ranking?
- It is recomputed about once a year over a multi-year citation window, and the calculation date is shown beneath the list. Recent, fast-moving work may not yet be reflected in citation counts.
Spotted an error?
If a journal looks misclassified — the wrong discipline, a missing title, a band that seems off — please tell us at [email protected]. Every report gets an answer, and a confirmed error is corrected at the latest when the ranking is next recomputed.
What this is not
- This ranks journals, not individual articles: it says nothing about the validity of any single paper.
- It is not medical advice and no substitute for clinical judgement or reading the work itself.
- The ranking is factual and method-based, computed the same way for every title. Like any method that ranks journals, though, it carries bias and is not a definitive judgement on a journal's quality or relevance — neither an endorsement nor a criticism of any journal or publisher.
See also the Orthopedic Surgery literature digest — a daily email of new orthopedic surgery articles, filtered by these same quality bands.