Brian Freeman

Medicine, Class of 1988

Professor Brian Freeman is an adult and paediatric spinal surgeon based at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. He has a strong interest in the management of spinal cord injury and paediatric spinal deformity.

Following graduation from RCSI, Prof. Freeman pursued higher surgical training in orthopaedic and trauma surgery, obtaining Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, UK (1997) and Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (2010).

He completed two internationally-recognised Fellowships in Spinal Surgery; The British Orthopaedic Association National Fellowship in Spinal Surgery, Nottingham, UK (1999) and The Clinical/Research Fellowship in Spinal Surgery at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, Australia (2000). Research conducted by Prof. Freeman during this Fellowship (2000) led to the award of a Doctorate of Medicine for his Thesis from the University of Nottingham, UK (2006).

Prof. Freeman commenced as Consultant Spinal Surgeon at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK in 2000. In 2007, he was awarded the position of Special Professor of Spinal Surgery by the University of Nottingham, UK (2007-2010). In 2008 he was appointed Head of Spinal Services at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Professor of Spinal Surgery at University of Adelaide (2008-present). He was appointed Research Director at the Adelaide Centre for Spinal Research in 2012 and Co-director of the Centre for Orthopaedic and Trauma Research, University of Adelaide in 2012. He is the senior clinician responsible for the management of traumatic spinal cord injured patients for Central Australia (South Australia and Northern Territories).

Aside from clinical practice, Prof. Freeman is Head of the Spinal Research Group, Clinical Director of the Centre for Orthopaedic Trauma and Research, University of Adelaide and Research Fellow at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. He has been awarded competitive funding for research of AUD $3.6 million and a further AUD $3.25 million from industry over the last 10 years. Prof. Freeman is co-investigator for the Safety and Efficacy Trial of Riluzole in Acute Spinal Cord Injury (RISCIS) and co-investigator for the Immediate Cooling and Emergency Decompression (ICED) Trial for the treatment of spinal cord injury (NHMRC Project Grant APP ID 1066217, AUD 581,561).

Prof. Freeman serves as a Deputy Editor for Spine: International Journal for the Study of the Spine (Impact Factor 2.499, 2017). He has published 97 peer-reviewed papers, 154 published abstracts and 20 book chapters. He has supervised Bachelors of Medical Science, Masters, Doctorate of Medicine and Doctorate of Philosophy to completion.