Specialties & Experience of this Expert Witness

Additional Information

Julio Petilon, MD, is an American Board-Certified orthopedic spine surgeon specializing in treating degenerative, traumatic and other disorders of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, including herniated discs, deformity, revision surgery and disease of the sacroiliac joint, as well as general orthopedic surgery. He is licensed to practice medicine in the states of Louisiana and Georgia. Dr. Petilon evaluates each patient individually with a comprehensive approach, offering both non-operative and surgical treatment plans to help alleviate acute and chronic pain, as well as associated neurological symptoms. When surgery is indicated, Dr. Petilon utilizes both open and the latest minimally invasive techniques to provide patients optimal results and recovery, including endoscopic spine surgery. Dr. Petilon earned a Doctorate of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. He then completed an internship and orthopedic surgery residency at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. After residency, he completed a combined Orthopedic and Neurosurgical spine fellowship through the prestigious Norton Leatherman Spine Center at the University of Louisville School Of Medicine in Louisville, Kentucky. Upon fellowship completion, Dr. Petilon returned to the Naval Medical Center as a staff Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon and treated active military, veterans, and elite SEAL teams. He served as Department Head of Orthopaedics at the U.S. Naval Hospital in eastern Sicily and as professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Petilon was designated a Naval Flight Surgeon for VFA-106, a training squadron for F-18 pilots in Oceana, VA. He served as primary physician for the squadron and supporting teams and also logged hundreds of flight hours himself. Dr. Petilon further served his country with a tour to Afghanistan as operating room Department Head to perform hundreds of procedures on victims of wartime injuries. A member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons, North American Spine Society, and Southern Orthopaedic Association, Dr. Petilon has authored published works in peer-reviewed spine and orthopaedic journals and has presented at numerous national and international spine conferences. Additionally, he has been recognized by Becker’s Orthopaedic and Pain Management Review’s “207 Spine Surgeons and Specialists to Know.” Dr. Petilon holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Amherst College, where he graduated as an All-American Scholar and received the Five College Latin American History Certificate. Dr. Petilon is fluent in both English and Spanish.