Lawson Copley

Dr. Lawson Copley is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, affiliated with Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. He specializes in pediatric orthopaedics with a focus on musculoskeletal infections, trauma, and septic arthritis. His clinical roles include orthopaedic trauma coverage at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and leadership in surgical services within the U.S. Air Force.

Dr. Copley’s education includes a degree from Wheaton College (magna cum laude), medical degree from Kansas University Medical Center, and residency at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a fellowship in Pediatric Orthopaedics and Scoliosis at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital.

His research interests center on pediatric musculoskeletal infections, particularly osteomyelitis and septic arthritis. He has developed severity scoring systems for osteomyelitis and investigates diagnostic algorithms using biomarkers like procalcitonin. His work emphasizes age-specific treatment strategies and genomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus strains in pediatric infections.

Dr. Copley’s 74+ publications span clinical guidelines, biomarker studies, and surgical innovations. He collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to improve outcomes in musculoskeletal infections, including MRI optimization, antimicrobial therapy protocols, and minimally invasive techniques.

His contributions include the 2023 PIDS/IDSA guideline for acute bacterial arthritis and the 2021 guideline for osteomyelitis management. He leads efforts to reduce antibiotic resistance and improve diagnostic accuracy through multi-omics approaches.