Dr. John Ratliff was born on November 22, 1969, and grew up in rural Eastern Kentucky. He graduated magna cum laude from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and then completed medical school at Tulane University. He completed internship and residency at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, training under David Kline, MD. He had the opportunity to complete a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health Surgical Neurology Branch under Edward Oldfield, MD, and a spine fellowship at New York University with Paul Cooper, MD. John's clinical practice focuses upon complex spinal surgery and peripheral nerve surgery.

He is presently a professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University, where he acts as Vice Chair for Operations and Development, is Department Quality Officer, serves as Associate Program Director, and is Co-Director of Division of Spine and Peripheral Nerve Surgery. John is co-chair for Stanford Hospital and Clinics Value Based Supply and Purchasing committee. John is an accomplished national leader in organized neurosurgery. He is chair-elect of the Joint AANS/CNS Washington Committee. He serves on the AANS/CNS Coding and Reimbursement Committee, is AANS RUC Advisor, is past chairman of the AANS/CNS Neurosurgery Quality Council, and represented the AANS/CNS as a member of the National Quality Forum (NQF) National Priorities Partnership Overuse Work Group, the NQF's Bone and Joint Technical Advisory Panel, and the NQF Cost and Resource Use Steering Committee. He is Recording Secretary for the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies and is active in the Joint Section of Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves, where he is a former executive committee member and previous editor for the Spine Section newsletter. He most recently has served as president for the California Association of Neurological Surgeons. he is a member of the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality Hospital Acquired Infection Measure Development Panel and he serves as a California Delegate to the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies. He also represents CANS at the California Carrier Advisory Committee.

John is a previous recipient of the American College of Surgeons/American Association of Neurological Surgeons Health Policy Scholarship, and served as a Health Policy Scholar for 2009-2010. John's research focuses upon use of big data in health care and upon improving outcomes assessment in spine surgery patients. The research focus of his group at present is complication modelling and developing means of predicting complication occurrence in administrative datasets. His work will provide foundation for more accurate prediction of expected complication occurrence based upon patient diagnosis, comorbidities, procedure performed, and demographics. Further investigations within his lab focus upon patterns of opioid prescribing in newly diagnosed patients with low back and lower extremity pain and the economic impact of different treatment pathways in management of spine surgery patients. His research is supported by research grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation, and from private foundations. He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and recently published his first textbook, "Quality Spine Care." He has recently served as a review panelist for the National Institutes of Health/National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Clinical Trials Review Committee.

He is married to Carla Carvalho, MD, a trauma surgeon, and has two children, Maya (born 2010) and Jessica (born 2012).