August 20, 2019

The process of choosing a physician to treat your injury can be confusing and difficult. The priority, of course, is to fix the issue as much, as quickly, and as painlessly as possible, but other factors like bedside manner, personability, communication skills, and level of sympathy also contribute to your overall experience. We’d like to make that process easier for you by sharing who Dr. Alton Barron is and what makes him the best hand surgeon in Austin.  

A native Texan, Dr. Barron received his undergraduate degree in Engineering with honors from the University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded his medical degree from Tulane University, where he also completed his orthopedic surgery residency, receiving multiple honors.

He now specializes in routine and complex problems of the upper limb and is Clinical Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, Senior Attending Physician at the Roosevelt Hand to Shoulder Center at OrthoManhattan in New York City, and Medical Director of Pinnacle Surgery Center in Austin.

Passionate about both sports and music, Dr. Barron served as Fordham University’s Team Physician from 2002-2014 and has been a treating doctor for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera for the past seventeen years. He is also a consultant for the New Jersey Devils NHL team. 

In 2017, Alton founded the Musician Treatment Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to provide medical care to under-insured professional musicians. He is also a founding and advisory board member of the nonprofit Team Continuum, which has raised over $7 million in nine years for child cancer patients and their families. 

He and his wife Carrie Barron MD, a psychiatrist at the UT Dell Medical School, have three children, all living in Austin. Dr. Barron has completed fifteen marathons and enjoys sports like tennis, golf, basketball, and hiking.  

Dr. Barron highly regards music for its ability to change and alter a person’s life for the better, just as orthopedic surgery does. Understanding that it can be a real source of ease and comfort, Dr. Barron asks his patients to choose the music played in his operating room – with more than ten thousand songs on his iPod to choose from, there is usually something for everyone.

He is “continually captivated and inspired by [his patient’s] stories; what they do, how they live, who and what they love. In addition to diagnosing their medical concern,” he finds it “fascinating to learn what makes someone tick – the Talking Heads, fly-fishing, angel hair pasta with homemade pesto, the banjo, rock climbing,” or whatever it may be. Alton takes the time to sit down and get to know his patients on a personal level – he believes this is the best way to build trust and is humbled each time a person decides to put their health in his hands: a decision he ensures they never regret. 

If you’d like to book an appointment with the best hand surgeon in Austin, you can reach him here by either calling his office or submitting a contact form.