UCLA Athletics Mourns Loss of Dr. Gerald Finerman
May 06, 2025 | General
LOS ANGELES – Dr. Gerald Finerman, a pioneering orthopaedic surgeon and longtime head team physician for the UCLA Athletics Department, passed away on Saturday, May 3. He died peacefully at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife, Sharon Stevenson, by his side. Dr. Finerman was 86.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Dr. Finerman served as UCLA's head team physician from 1971-2013, working a 43-year span in Westwood that saw 85 athletic teams win NCAA championships. He was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012. Dr. Finerman served as the Chief Medical Officer for the Olympic Village in Los Angeles in 1984.
Among his colleagues, Dr. Finerman was regarded as one of the most skilled and respected orthopaedic surgeons in the country. His professional legacy at UCLA was tied to the people he recruited as well as the program he built. Starting with Dr. David McAllister and Dr. Sharon Hame, Dr. Finerman committed to building a sports medicine program that led in both science and care. He took on the role of Chair of the Department, overseeing the expansion, modernization and maturation of UCLA Orthopaedics from a six-member faculty to one, by 2013, with eight divisions, 25 surgeons and 10 research faculty. He partnered with Dr. Jim Luck to create the alliance with Orthopaedic Hospital and the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center, two facilities that have continued to push the frontiers of care and science in musculoskeletal medicine.
Dr. Finerman helped define the surgeon-scientist pathway in orthopaedic surgery. For his work with Dr. Marshall Urist identifying bone morphogenic protein (BMP) and Dr. Keith Markolf in bioengineering, Dr. Finerman was awarded with the most prestigious research award in orthopaedic surgery, the Kappa Delta Award. He served on the board of the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation and made funding early stage scientific research in orthopaedic surgery a priority.
Before making UCLA his forever home in 1971, Dr. Finerman attended the University of Pennsylvania and trained at Johns Hopkins University. Over the next four decades, he led UCLA's Division of Sports Medicine for 35 years, served as the Dorothy and Leonard Strauss Scholar for 30 years, and served as Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery for 20 years. He had maintained a close friendship with legendary Bruins' basketball coach John Wooden and cared for generations of standout student-athletes, including Bill Walton, Reggie Miller, Troy Aikman and Jonathan Ogden.
Dr. Finerman is survived by his wife and partner of nearly 30 years, Sharon, his five children (Wendy, Mark, Karen, Leslie, and Stacey), his 14 grandchildren, and his brother, Ralph, and sister, Adele.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to The Gerald A. M. Finerman M.D. Endowed Fund for Education in Orthopaedic Surgery (link here).
To give by check, make checks payable to The UCLA Foundation and mail to:
The UCLA Foundation
10889 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1000
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Please include the following on the memo line:
Gerald A.M. Finerman, M.D. Endowed Fund for Education in Orthopaedic Surgery – #82403
To plant trees in his memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
