Dr. Watson is chief of the orthopaedic trauma service and professor of orthopaedic surgery at St. Louis University School of Medicine and has been since 2003. He graduated from the University of Wyoming with a degree in Zoology and Physiology and earned his MD from Creighton University School of Medicine in 1981. Dr. Watson completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Following residency he completed an orthopaedic trauma fellowship at Parkland Hospital - U.T. Southwestern Medical School. Following the Parkland fellowship he completed two additional A/O fellowships, the first in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the second in Munich, Germany, where distraction (Ilizarov) methodologies were first observed. He returned to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for four years as director of the Complex Fracture Service and began applying Ilizarov techniques to trauma and non-union cases. During this time (1989) he was fortunate enough to travel to Kurgan, Siberia and spend time with Professor Ilizarov along with a core group of North American surgeons, most of whom today represent the majority of Ilizarov methodology experts in North America. He subsequently spent the next 14 years in Detroit, Michigan at Henry Ford Hospital and Wayne State University. During this time he developed an expertise in the emerging arena of orthobiologics and bone growth factor application and basic science research.

Dr. Watson has been active in academics and national trauma organizations for the last 20 years. He has published extensively on a wide variety of trauma related topics and lectures nationally and internationally on his clinical and basic science research interests. He is a recognized expert in the areas of severe bone loss, bone transport, peri-articular injuries, as well as deformity correction. He sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, The Journal of Trauma, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, Bone, as well as The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. He is a charter founding member of the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Society and also a founding board member for the Foundation for Orthopaedic Trauma. He has also been very active in the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, is the past chairman of the Fellowship and Career Choice committee (2000-06), and is the immediate past president of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (2009).