Dr. Judson Walker Karlen, MD

Always excellent! Always friendly! Always fast! Always comfortable, like talking with a friend, because he is. After 17 or so procedures, watching him grow from a fellow at CHLA to a leading ortho & spine surgeon in the world, we have greatly benefited from his surgical skill, empathetic practice and depth of knowledge about my child’s diagnosis. We couldn’t ask for a better person, practitioner or partner in our child’s care. We thank you deeply, Judson.

We chose Dr. Judson Karlen for our daughter's spinal fusion surgery. We consulted at the Mayo in MN, but decided to do the surgery closer to home in AZ -- our Mayo doctor recommended Karlen. We were quite nervous about the surgery, and I remember he told me "I got this" and his confidence really helped us get through it. Dr. Karlen performed the surgery assisted by Dr. J. Summers, and the two of them were great to work with and they did an amazing job correcting her 79-degree curve down to practically nothing! (lower curve was around 49-degrees) After surgery there is a little bit of a curve, but not much. They are a good team! Also, the day after surgery, Dr. Karlen had to teach a workshop or something, but he told us ahead of time that he would be away, and Dr. Summers would be there for us, and she was! And I might add that he had to squeeze us in before the busy summer schedule started, which we really appreciated.

Our son has been a patient of Dr Karlen for 10 years. He has been with since our son’s diagnosis at age 4. He is the only Dr our sone has seen. Even when we lived a short time in CA we would travel to Phoenix specifically have him see our son. He explains everything and our son trusts him. He has performed multiple surgeries and procedures. Amazing dr!

I would like to say my family and i have been seeing Dr. Karlen for a year now. He recently performed surgery for my son's scoliosis and he did a fantastic job! He answered all of our questions and was very informative. His manner with our 4 year old was very good and our son is comfortable around him and we highly recommend him.

Good

I would like to say that Dr. Karlen is an absolutely phenomenal surgeon. He just performed spinal fusion surgery on my son, who had a 75% curvature. Dr. Karlen has literally changed my son's life and I cannot be more thankful. Everything about our interactions with Dr. Karlen and his staff was above and beyond what one would expect and I would recommend him a million times over. I don't think that there is a better surgeon around and if you are someone looking for an orthopedic surgeon, then you have found the best in Dr. Karlen.

We see Dr. Karlen for our baby's hip dysplasia. While I am sure Dr. Karlen is very competent, he doesn't have the best bed side manner. When we mentioned that we were trying to save money by getting xrays and ultrasounds done where it was much cheaper (not at the hospital), and wanted to see a Doctor that would be coming to our area, he seemed offended. He eluded to us not caring about the condition and the best thing to do was to continue seeing him in PHX. I was offended - of course we want what is best for our baby. We found out from his staff that getting the xrays/ultrasounds at a location other than the hospital was perfectly fine and no big deal. We never could see a Doctor in our area for this condition, and continued making the drive for the minute we would see the Doctor, which is fine, just expensive. Overall we think he treated the condition just fine, he just isn't very personable.

Doesn't connect with kids. Fails to explain the diagnosis with parents.

Dr.karlen was a great doctor to fix my problem. i highly recommend him to anyone.