Class of 1970 Commemorative Biographical Book

J O H N W. B R A N T I G A N

Address: 2526 Neck Point Road, P.O. Box 106, Shaw Island, WA 98286 Email: jbrantigan@rockisland.com ● Phone: 360-468-4379

the worldwide experience with the implants. I endowed the Brantigan Clinical Research Fund at Johns Hopkins to provide financial support to medical students who wished to gain experience in research as part of their medical education. A widely sought lecturer and presenter, I taught spine surgical techniques in England, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada and published just under a hundred technical papers. I was given the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2009 for this work. Retired in the San Juan Islands northwest of Seattle, I represented Shaw Island on the Washington State Ferry Advisory Committee for ten years. I am a member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of Seattle’s Museum of Flight, serving as chairman of the Space Flight Committee for over a decade. My wife Carolyn and I both fly our Bell 407 helicopter, based at a private airfield on Shaw Island, and a Cessna Citation CJ2 airplane, based on the mainland. We enjoy taking our boat up the Inside Passage to Alaska and salmon fishing in the ocean west of Sitka. Photo caption: At Seattle’s Museum of Flight, John and Carolyn Brantigan stand by the Curtiss Robin C-1 airplane named the Newsboy. This airplane was used in the 1930’s to air drop bundles of the McCook Gazette to neighboring towns in Nebraska. John and Carolyn are at the controls of the Space Shuttle FFT at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Alma mater: Cornell University

Postgraduate Training/Certification: Internship: University of Minnesota Department of Surgery Residency: University of Washington Board certification: American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery

Spouse or Partner’s Name: Carolyn Brooks Brantigan

Narrative: After my surgical internship, I served as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1971 to 1973. It was during this time that I began my life-long interest in aviation, eventually earning the Airline Transport Pilot rating in 1991. After orthopaedic residency, I began medical practice in Omaha, Nebraska. There I developed a particular interest in the clinical problem of the failed discectomy and designed a new implant that allowed reconstruction of the intervertebral joint broken by a disc rupture. I performed animal studies to validate a new material, carbon fiber reinforced polymer, an aerospace material never before used in human implants. As chief of reconstructive spinal surgery at Creighton University, I completed a multi-centered clinical study of the implant, achieving full FDA approval in 1999, substantially improving patient outcomes. This led to the design of similar implants for the entire spine. These implants are now widely used and widely copied throughout the world in treatment of spinal trauma, tumors, and degenerative conditions. I wrote and edited a textbook, Intervertebral Fusion Using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Implants, compiling

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