James T. Bennett, MD
Dr. James T. Bennett, a native of New Orleans is a recognized expert in scoliosis and spine deformity in children, adolescents, and young adults. He is licensed in Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas, and provides care to patients throughout the Southeast and internationally. Dr. Bennett brought the first O-arm, which he uses in all of his scoliosis deformity surgeries, to the state of Louisiana in 2006. This enhances patient safety and is, or will be, the standard of care in spine deformity surgery. However, most of his patients with spine deformity are treated non-operatively through observation or bracing, including scoliosis-specific Schroth exercises. His outpatient team includes his nurse coordinator, Julie Giovingo, who has been with Dr. Bennett since 2002, as well as physical and occupational therapists. A dedicated surgical team of ten consists of Bennett, his spine resident, an anesthesiologist and assistant, his scrub and circulating nurses, his implant representative, his neuro monitor, his blood conservationist, and an O-arm radiology technologist.
Dr. Bennett is double-boarded: in orthopaedics by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, and in spine surgery by the American Board of Spine Surgery. He is a reviewer for The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and has authored many clinical and research papers. He is a member of the Scoliosis Research Society and the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, as well as a number of other professional societies. Dr. Bennett also serves on the curriculum advisory committee for Tulane’s biomedical engineering program.
He graduated in 1974 from the Tulane University School of Engineering, and in 1978 from the Tulane University School of Medicine. After residencies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Alfred duPont Institute in Wilmington, Delaware, Dr. Bennett did a pediatric orthopaedic fellowship at the Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. He returned to Tulane University, where he joined the department of orthopaedics as an assistant professor of orthopaedics, and was later promoted to full professor, with tenure. Dr. Bennett is also a clinical professor of neurosurgery.
Dr. Bennett has retired from clinical practice.