Dr. Walton attended Oklahoma State University and studied chemical engineering with a pre-med option. During the summer after his junior year of college, he suffered a devastating injury from an oil field explosion. The explosion resulted in severe burns over 75 percent of his body, requiring 20 operations, two months of hospitalization initially, and one year of intensive physical therapy. Despite a three percent chance of survival, he returned to college in one year and started medical school two years after the explosion.
The experience shaped Dr. Walton’s future commitment to help other patients through their medical difficulties. In 1989, Dr. Walton earned his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.
After graduation he began his career with a general surgery residency at the Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The residency chairman was a prominent bariatric surgeon. This exposure continued to interest Dr. Walton even after completing his general surgery residency. As the laparoscopic approach to bariatric surgery evolved, Dr. Walton decided to begin a bariatric program – this in the face of a very busy, well rounded general surgery practice in Enid, Oklahoma. He performed several hundred bariatric operations over the next three years.
“Bariatric surgery dramatically effects the lives of patients, from a health standpoint but also from a social standpoint,” Dr. Walton states and continues, “[Bariatric surgery] also abundantly fulfills every ambition I set forth before starting medical school.” In March 2006, Dr. Walton persuaded Dr. Broussard to move to OKC and together created the WeightWise Bariatric Program. Since their arrival in the Oklahoma City Metro area, the practice has grown into a premier bariatric surgery practice.
He serves as the Board of Directors for the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, is a Diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Walton’s other professional memberships include the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons, the Society of Laparoendscopic Surgeons, SAGES, the southwest Surgical Congress, and the American Medical Association.