Biography
Hugh G. Watts, M.D. was born in Japan of missionary parents. At age seven, his family returned to Canada where he finished his early schooling. After a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Anthropology at Princeton University, he took his M.D. at Harvard Medical School.
After two years working in Afghanistan with MEDICO, Dr. Watts completed his orthopaedic training at Harvard University and then spent two years in Immunology research in England, returning to the Boston Children’s Hospital as a staff Orthopaedic Surgeon. In 1979, Hugh became the Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. In 1984, he moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he worked for five years at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and established its first department of orthopaedic surgery. In 1989, he joined the Shriners Hospital for Children in Los Angeles, and is currently the Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UCLA.
Hugh has maintained a keen interest in health problems from a global perspective. He has lectured extensively in the U.S., Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, the Middle East, Argentina, and Australia, and has worked in Columbia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Liberia, Lithuania, Palestine, and Sierra Leone. He initiated the committee for international activities of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA).
Dr. Watts currently serves on the advisory board of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and has been a frequent visiting teacher in Gaza and the West Bank. He is also active in the Silver Service Children’s Foundation in Buga, Colombia, SA, where he works and teaches twice a year.
