Ignacio V. Ponseti, MD
1914 - 2009
Ignacio Ponseti, MD died on October 18, 2009 at the age of 95. Dr. Ponseti was born in 1914 on the Spanish Isle of Minorca in the Mediterranean. He studied medicine in Barcelona and soon after graduation sided with the Republican partisans in the Spanish Civil War. Following defeat by Franco’s Nationalists in 1939, Ponseti escaped to France, moved to Mexico, and eventually settled at the University of Iowa in 1941. He completed his residency at Iowa in 1944 under Arthur Steindler, MD, and remained in Iowa City on the faculty.
Dr. Ponseti’s clinical and research interests covered subjects as diverse as skeletal dysplasias, metatarsus adductus, scoliosis, Perthes, hip dysplasia, tibial agenesis, slipped epiphysis, and torticollis. Most remarkable was his devotion to the improvement in the care of children with congenital clubfoot.
Closed treatment of clubfeet had been practiced for centuries, but Dr. Ponseti identified errors in manipulative technique, improving results and decreasing secondary deformities. He advocated early achilles tenotomy followed by prolonged bracing. Foregoing more comprehensive surgical releases, he avoided much of the stiffness experienced by many clubfoot patients.
Ponseti’s method, while practiced successfully in Iowa for decades, only became widely accepted within the last decade. The worldwide shift from extensive surgery for clubfoot to the Ponseti method has been one the most remarkable recent changes in pediatric orthopaedics, and the improvement in the lives of multitudes of children can be attributed to the work of Dr. Ponseti.
Dr. Ponseti practiced at the University of Iowa Clinics and Hospital his entire career. He continued to work full days, almost every day, up to the time of his death. He is survived by his wife Helena and his son Bill.
Dr. Ponseti was the recipient of the POSNA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006.
