Charles L. Branch Jr., MD, House Staff ’87, a native of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who grew up in Texas, received his bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma Christian and his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He completed his neurosurgical training at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a clinical fellowship in neurological surgery at the University of California in San Francisco. He returned to the School of Medicine as a faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery. He served as acting chair of the department in 2000 until his appointment as professor and chair in 2001, and he was awarded the Eben Alexander Jr. Endowed Chair in July 2002.
Over the course of his career, Branch has helped to train more than 60 neurosurgical residents. During his tenure as chair, the number of faculty in the department more than tripled and the number of residents in training doubled. Research funding from the National Institutes of Health for department faculty and collaborators grew from a modest number to more than $11 million in five-year awards.
Branch has been at the forefront of discovery for neurosurgery and is recognized internationally for surgical techniques he pioneered and perfected, including the minimally invasive posterior interbody lumbar fusion technique that has transformed the way clinicians perform spinal fusions. His work also resulted in the commercialization of numerous state-of-the-art medical devices, including more than 40 patents, as well as his toolkit for interbody spine fusion that is now used around the world.
His innovative thinking also sparked several major developments at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, including the Thomas Hearn Brain Tumor Center of Excellence, the development of the stereotactic radiosurgery program and helping to bring the Gamma Knife — a type of radiation therapy used to treat brain tumors — to Wake Forest Baptist, where it was the first of its kind in North Carolina. He also partnered with the family of NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Childress and Wayne Meredith, MD ’78, House Staff ’84, MCCM, FACS, to establish the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma in 2008.
In 2004, Branch was named editor-in-chief for The Spine Journal and subsequently served on the editorial board for The Journal of Neurosurgery — Spine. In 2021, he was appointed editor-in-chief for the International Journal of Spine Surgery. Over the years, his research interests have included brain tumor therapy, herniated discs, lumbar vertebrae, spinal diseases and trauma, spinal stenosis and spine degeneration. He has published 24 book chapters and 80 journal articles and abstracts. He also served in many leadership and editorial positions at prestigious neurosurgery and spine specialty organizations, including as director and chair of the American Board of Neurological Surgery and as president of the North American Spine Society.
He and his wife, Lesa, have five children and a growing number of grandchildren.