Knee-deep in Kids and Watersports

John Andrawis, MD, puts in long hours, performing multiple knee and hip replacement surgeries a day, or meeting with patients at his three offices throughout the South Bay. And there’s nothing on earth he’d rather be doing.

“It’s the greatest job in the world,” says the chair of orthopedic surgery and medical director of the Lundquist Orthopedic Institute at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. Outside work, Dr. Andrawis and his wife, Michaela, a corporate attorney, are busy with their three kids, ages 7, 5 and 2.

Afternoons and weekends find the Andrawis family on the go. From soccer to piano, tennis and baseball, “we’re constantly moving from one activity to another,” he says. “And the kids are still little! I can’t even imagine how it’ll be if they advance to competitive teams.”

Both parents help coach their sons’ teams. Scout meetings will soon be added to the calendar, as Dr. Andrawis, a proud Eagle Scout, scopes out prospective dens for the boys.

On days off, the family heads to their lakeside cottage in the Mojave Desert. Everyone plays on the water—tubing, kayaking, paddleboarding. Dr. Andrawis’ sport of choice is wakesurfing, a cross between waterskiing and ocean surfing. Towed by a special “wake boat,” the wakesurfer can drop the rope once standing and ride a continuous wave cut by the craft’s hull.

“It’s super fun,” Dr. Andrawis says. He can execute ollies, 360s and jumps but modestly insists “I’m still a novice.” Michaela also enjoys wakesurfing, so they take turns at the wheel.

When the Andrawises aren’t on the lake, they’re often on a South Bay beach. The two boys are active in Junior Guards and learning to ride Dad’s hydrofoil, an aerodynamic board that rises above the surf.

“I’ve always been on the water,” Dr. Andrawis says, explaining his family’s amphibious ways. A competitive swimmer and water polo player at Arcadia High School, he swam at the club level all through his undergraduate years at UCLA, while majoring in biology and finishing summa cum laude.

He and Michaela met in college and went on to grad school in the Windy City, where she earned her J.D. at Loyola University Chicago and he earned MD and MBA degrees as a scholarship student at the University of Chicago.

After completing his orthopedic residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and an arthroplasty fellowship specializing in joint replacements at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Andrawis joined the orthopedic practice of Torrance Memorial Physician Network in 2018.

Drawn to medicine from an early age, Dr. Andrawis bucked family tradition—his mother, father and brother are all chemical engineers. “I’m the black sheep of the family,” he says cheerfully. “I wasn’t good enough at chemical engineering, so I had to find something else to do.”

That “something” is hip and knee replacements. “It’s all I do,” he says. Dr. Andrawis performs many surgeries a day, which contributes to Torrance Memorial’s current rank as the busiest orthopedic surgical center in Los Angeles County and one of the nation’s top orthopedic nonteaching hospitals.

Monotony isn’t a problem, he says, because no two patients are alike. And it’s joyous work, seeing patients’ quality of life improve so radically.

His upbeat outlook, combined with excellence outcomes and consistent thumbs-ups from patients, gets noticed. Last September, Dr. Andrawis for the second time received Torrance Memorial’s The Reason Is You service award, recognizing a positive attitude and commitment to patient care.

“You’re giving people the ability to walk again,” Dr. Andrawis says. “That’s life-changing. And they’re so happy and grateful. It’s the best feeling in the world to know you’re making a big difference.”