John C. Huntwork, MD

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Dr. Huntwork entered The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine at age 20. His early career choices favored academia, but he discovered after joining the faculty of Marshall University Medical School in 1977, that he was drawn to the clinic 1st and the classroom 2nd. He has had a referral-only private practices in rheumatology for 40+ years, 20 years in Huntington, West Virginia, with clinical faculty duties at Marshall Medical School, and 20+ years in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He has personally seen in excess of 20,000 separate rheumatology consultations, most from primary care providers.

His greatest pride is his family-- wife, Mary, a really (really) nice lady who agreed to marry him 45 years ago, and his 2 children. Stephanie is a senior book designer for Random House in New York. Nathan is a Tulane grad and an attorney in New Orleans. Dr. Huntwork’s current hobbies involve fishing poles, golf clubs and/or power tools. He has served two terms in a state legislature (West Virginia House of Delegates). He has 950 hours as a private pilot (inactive). He has 4 older brothers, plus a twin brother who is a lawyer in Phoenix—which is why he tends to like competitive activities, whether watching or participating, and why he feels at home fighting with insurance companies.

At age 70, with excellent health, plenty of energy and nothing left on his bucket list, he’s decided to leave his house on a golf course and a busy solo practice on the Mississippi Coast, to take a job in New Orleans, at Tulane, where he is really needed as a Rheumatologist. He still enjoys patient care after all these years because his priorities have been, first, to help those patients he can help, and, second, to provide those services to the medical community that most needs him.