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Indiana Spine Group
Honoree, Physician
He’s a distinguished spine surgeon with the Indiana Spine Group, but Dr. Joseph Smucker is also noted for his skills as a mentor, instructor and a researcher responsible for notable advances in spinal care.
“I think the best health care providers check at least three boxes,” Smucker said. “Obviously, almost all health care providers need to be excellent clinically, but I think they also need to be researchers and teachers.”
A big proponent of education and mentorship, Smucker is a leader in the Indiana Spine Group Fellowship program and teaches physician assistant students from local and regional programs. His leadership positions include serving as chief of surgery at Indiana Spine Hospital and as president of medical staff at Ascension Carmel Hospital. He also serves on the American Board of Orthopedic Surgeons and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
He vigorously promotes teamwork and consistently attributes success to collaboration among the myriad specialties needed not just for a successful surgery but also for a smooth recovery.
“From my perspective, teamwork in health care is absolutely critical,” Smucker said. “There are a lot of professionals who bring something special to the team, whether they’re a nurse practitioner or a medical assistant or an M.D. They all bring something really positive.”
His research also contributes to improving spinal surgical techniques and patient outcomes. During his career, he’s participated in numerous FDA clinical trials. For instance, right now he’s working on one that began in approximately 2018 and is anticipated to run through 2026. It involves hundreds of thousands of patients from multiple sites.
“It’s been interesting to me not only to help design some of those clinical trials but also to mentor other hospitals and facilities around the world,” Smucker said.
He also created the Indiana Spine Registry—a digital storehouse containing clinical data about many thousands of Hoosier spinal cases. That ever-growing fund of knowledge is configured as a searchable database practitioners can use to discover what works, what doesn’t, and under what circumstances. The system is connected with the American Spine Registry and the Cervical Spine Research Society Registry, contributing to an even larger information pool.
“I love clinical trials, but they can take five to 10 years to mature, and you’re only trying to answer one question,” Smucker said. “Now, with a registry, you’re saying, ‘Here’s my patient population as a whole. Let’s collect meaningful data from all of them, and then we can go back and ask meaningful questions over time that perhaps we haven’t even thought of today.”•
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