Dr. James Lawrence is board certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and is licensed to practice medicine in the state of South Carolina. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Physical Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. His expertise and interests include minimally invasive spinal surgery, cervical and lumbar disk problems and stenosis, complex adult spinal deformity surgery, complex spinal trauma, and spinal tumors.

After graduating from his undergraduate studies at Trinity College, Dr. Lawrence received medical and business degrees from the University of Connecticut. He then completed his internship and residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at Yale. Dr. Lawrence completed fellowship training in Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical Spine Surgery at the prestigious Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia. He was then in full-time academic spine practice at Albany Medical Center in upstate New York before moving to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Dr. Lawrence has authored numerous publications in the basic science and clinical practice of spine surgery and many chapters in leading textbooks in Spinal Surgery. He has presented award-winning research internationally and at numerous national meetings, including the North American Spine Society, the Cervical Spine Research Society, the Scoliosis Research Society, the Eastern Orthopaedic Association, and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He has also been the recipient of numerous teaching and patient care awards over his career.

Dr. Lawrence's current research interests surround the development of original techniques and instruments in spinal surgery, outcomes research, and the basic science and physiology of the intervertebral disk.