Robert Tracy Ballock, Md

Biography

 Dr. Ballock grew up in Western Pennsylvania and earned a honors degree in Biology from Harvard College, where he also played varsity football. Following graduation from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Ballock made a conscious decision to become an academic orthopaedic surgeon in order to satisfy his desire to understand mechanisms of musculoskeletal disease at the most fundamental level.  After internship and residency training in orthopaedic surgery at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Ballock made an unusual career move for an orthopaedic surgeon by electing to spend two years in the intramural program at the National Institutes of Health, and a third year at Johns Hopkins, learning fundamental techniques of cellular and molecular biology. Following these three years of basic science research training, Dr. Ballock completed a clinical fellowship in pediatric orthopaedic surgery at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, and subsequently accepted a faculty position at the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland in 1994. In 2002, Dr. Ballock left Rainbow for a ten-year term as Head of the Section of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery and the Director of the Center for Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery in the Orthopaedic and Rheumatologic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. He currently holds the title of Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, where he directs a basic science laboratory focused on growth plate biology that has successfully attracted extramural funding for the past two decades. Dr. Ballock has been honored with two of the highest international awards presented to orthopaedic surgeons, the Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and the Arthur B. Huene Award from the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America. With over twenty years experience in taking care of children with orthopaedic problems, Dr. Ballock's clinical interests are centered on treatment of pediatric fractures and sports injuries, birth defects, hip dysplasia, clubfoot, deformity correction and leg lengthening. He was fortunate to travel to Iowa City early in his career to learn the Ponseti method for clubfoot treatment from the late Dr. Ignacio Ponseti himself. Dr. Ballock's colleagues have consistently recognized the quality of his clinical work by naming him as one of Cleveland Magazine’s Best Doctors every year for the past fifteen years.

Research Interest

 Orthopaedic Surgery