Dr. Michael Patterson is a board-certified, fellowship trained spine orthopaedic surgeon. He received extensive training in surgery of the cervical spine, or neck, during his fellowship. This training included such advanced techniques as cervical laminoplasty, taught to him by Jack Zigler M.D., formerly the director of the Rancho Los Amigos Spinal Cord Injury Service in Los Angeles.

After graduating from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, he pursued training in orthopedic surgery at the University of Kansas. While there, he began to develop his interest and skills in surgery of the spine. This interest was inborn, as his father , the late Stanley M. Patterson M.D. of Memphis, practiced for more than 30 years as an assistant professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee.