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Biography

Dr Richard Hocking is an experienced Australian-trained Orthopaedic Surgeon who performs comprehensive orthopaedic surgery of the appendicular skeleton (arms and legs) including primary and revision joint replacement in both the upper and lower limbs, elective arthroscopic (keyhole) surgery to the shoulder, knee and ankle, and extremity surgery to the hand and feet.

Dr Hocking performs primary hip replacements, hip resurfacings and revision total hip replacements. Dr Hocking performs a full range of arthroscopic knee surgery including ACL reconstruction, osteotomies around the knee, primary partial knee replacements, total knee replacements and revision total knee replacements.

Dr Hocking graduated with his medical degree from the University of New South Wales in 1997. He worked as a junior doctor in various New South Wales hospitals before he was accepted into the Australian Orthopaedic Association’s training program in 2001. Dr Hocking completed postgraduate orthopaedic training in Sydney on the Sydney Northside Training program in 2005. Following this, Dr Hocking spent two years in Canada completing prestigious post graduate fellowships in both Adult Reconstructive Surgery and Paediatric Orthopaedics.

After completing these fellowships, Dr Hocking established a mixed public and private subspecialty practice in Canberra, before moving to Queensland in 2015 for a ‘sea change’, where he worked at Bundaberg Base Hospital.

In 2017, Dr Hocking commenced private practice at Coral Coast Orthopaedics in The Friendlies Medical Suites and has admitting privileges to both The Friendly Society Private Hospital and Mater Private Hospital Bundaberg.

Dr Hocking is currently a Senior Instructor for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons faculty for Early Management of Severe Trauma. With this interest, Dr Hocking continues to perform orthopaedic trauma surgery and accepts cases from Emergency Departments throughout the Wide Bay and Burnett.

Dr Hocking has used computer navigation in his joint replacement cases since his post graduate fellowship in 2006. As navigation has evolved, Dr Hocking has trained in Robotic Assisted Joint Replacement and since 2021 has offered Robotic Assisted Total Knee Replacements in the Bundaberg Region.

Dr Hocking holds academic interests in diagnosing and managing orthopaedic infections. He is currently collaborating on a project to improve the diagnosis of orthopaedic infections using genomic technology. The project was initially a multi-site study based solely in Queensland. The study has grown and now includes sites in other states in Australia and overseas.