Ignacio Ponseti

Ignacio Ponseti (3 June 1914 – 18 October 2009), also known as Ignasi Ponsetí i Vives, was a Spanish-American physician, specializing in orthopedics. He was born on 3 June 1914 in Menorca, part of the Balearic Islands, Spain, Ponseti was the son of a watchmaker and spent his childhood helping repair watches. This skill was said to eventually contribute to his abilities as an orthopedist. He served three years as a medic during the Spanish Civil War treating orthopedic injuries of wounded soldiers. He left Spain shortly after the end of the war and became a faculty member and practicing physician at the University of Iowa, where he developed his ground-breaking, non-surgical treatment for the clubfoot defect - the Ponseti Method.