John Braxton, M.D., has been practicing
thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at
Marshfield Clinic since 2011 and still is
fascinated with heart surgery.
“These patients are not as delicate as we
sometimes think, and most of them do very
well,” he said.
Dr. Braxton is especially proud of his
growing heart valve surgery practice and
his role in bringing the TAVR (transcatheter
aortic valve replacement) procedure to
Marshfield. This minimally invasive surgery
repairs the damaged aortic heart valve
without removing it. Instead, it wedges a
replacement valve into the old valve’s place.
“This surgery was previously reserved for high-risk and inoperable patients, but I can see where at least 70 percent of our valves will be placed that way,” he said. “It’s a shift in thought processes and we were the pioneers in central Wisconsin. We will not go back to the old way.” He’s also proud of the work that he and fellow surgeon Hope Maki, M.D., are doing with robotic surgery.
Like his father, Dr. Braxton earned his medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He completed 12 years of additional training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
He has three daughters and enjoys working out, bicycling, swimming and target shooting.