Robert S. Bray, Jr., M.D.

“Completely pain free,” Dancing with the Stars’ Jennifer Grey told People magazine just one week after Dr. Robert S. Bray Jr. performed the outpatient spinal surgery that has her light on her feet again. The actress had turned to her long-time physician for the procedure that allowed her to compete in the primetime celebrity dance-off. When she ruptured a second major disc during the show’s two-part finale taping, she sought Dr. Bray’s care again with the hope of continuing in the competition. She not only continued. She won.

 

Jennifer Grey’s story represents just one of more than 10,000 successful such surgeries performed by Dr. Bray, who is described as “one of the world’s foremost neurological spinal surgeons” by Outpatient Surgery magazine. With a 95% focus on minimally invasive outpatient procedures [compared to a national average of 20%], Dr. Bray is transforming the once-complex spinal surgery into a stress-free outpatient procedure. The result is a new level of safety, efficiency and reduced recovery time that has his patient roster filled with world-class athletes, VIPs and weekend warriors alike.

 

Determined to revolutionize the patient experience, Dr. Bray founded DISC Sports and Spine Center (DISC), an LA-based state-of-the-art, multi-disciplinary facility, in 2006. Since then, DISC has become one of the major players defining sports medicine with its relationships as an official medical services provider of the United States Olympic Team, Red Bull’s North American athletes and the Los Angeles Kings. This success fueled the late 2011 opening of a second DISC facility in Orange County.

 

Dr. Bray launched DISC after a successful tenure at Cedar Sinai, where he had founded The Institute for Spinal Disorders and built it into one of the country’s largest spine programs. A Baylor College of Medicine graduate, he has also served as the director of neurosurgery and headed the spinal programs at St. John’s Medical Center, Century City Hospital and Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital. During 20 years of combined active and reserve duty with the United States Air Force, he received multiple medals and commendations for his work developing medical protocols and teaching wartime trauma techniques. Dr. Bray served as a Major while stationed as Chief of Neurosurgery at the David Grant Medical Center.

 

As the first California neurosurgeon to devote his practice to minimally invasive spine surgery, Dr. Bray began his career at the forefront of this field and remains one of its pioneers. He has multiple patents on a wide variety of spinal implants and surgical instruments and regularly consults the world’s leading medical manufacturers on the design and use of their products, including the development of the Zeiss Microscope.

 

In 2009, he discovered T.E.A.M. (thoracic epidural arteriovenous malformation) Disease, a debilitating condition primarily affecting young women. Dr. Bray developed a new imaging protocol with Mink Radiology to properly identify this previously misdiagnosed disease and now performs outpatient procedures that have been instrumental in reversing the severe upper back pain and loss of lower limb function that once led to paralysis.

 

His commitment to education and research is exhibited by his roster of more than 25 trained Fellows, his lectures around the globe, and his many published, peer-viewed articles.