Department of Surgery
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Specialties

Courtney Balentine, MD, MPH

Associate Professor

  • WiSOR Executive Director
  • Wisconsin Department of Surgery Director of Data Science
  • Division of Endocrine Surgery

cbalentine@wisc.edu

600 Highland Avenue
Madison, WI 53792

Education

  • MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
  • MPH, University of Texas at Houston, Houston, TX
  • Residency, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
  • Fellowship, Research, Houston Center for Quality of Care & Utilization, Houston, TX
  • Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Endocrine Surgery
  • Implementation Science Certificate Program, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Clinical Specialties

Dr. Balentine is a board-certified endocrine surgeon specializing in hernia repairs, dialysis outcomes, and endocrine surgery for veterans.

Research Interests

Dr. Balentine’s research is focused on inguinal hernia surgery in older adults and acute care for the elderly and veterans.

Dr. Balentine and Dr. Ganesh Sankaranarayanan, Associate Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern, were recently awarded at four-year, $1.6 million R01 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Read more here.

Dr. Balentine and Alan McMillan, PhD, professor in the Department of Radiology, were awarded a two-year, $69,000 grant from the Palliative and Supportive Care Disease-oriented Team at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Read more here.

Recent Publications

  • Barriers to the Implementation of Local Anesthesia for Older Adults Undergoing Inguinal Hernia Repair.
    Mai D, Cher BAY, Lunardi N, Thornton M, Baker JG, Macdonald C, Skinner CS, Brown CJ, Marten EL, Makris K, Heredia MLM, Berger M, Cullum CM, Lee S, Pham TH, Balentine CJ
    J Am Geriatr Soc 2026 Mar 26;
    [PubMed ID: 41885347]

  • Assessing the Evidence for Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Patients with Resectable Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Using the Robustness of Inference to Replacement.
    Cher BAY, Lin Q, Frank KA, Weber SM, Minter RM, Balentine CJ, Zafar SN
    Ann Surg Oncol 2026 Mar 12;
    [PubMed ID: 41817933]

  • Expectations vs Reality of an Intraoperative Artificial Intelligence Intervention.
    Thornton M, Cher BAY, Macdonald C, Baker JG, Marten EL, Mai D, Sankaranarayanan G, Balentine CJ
    JAMA Surg 2026 Mar 01; 161(3): 234-240
    [PubMed ID: 41533394]

  • Learning How Preoperative Communication Relates to Postoperative Experiences for Older Veterans Having Inguinal Hernia Surgery.
    Thornton MA, Marten EL, Lunardi N, Mai D, Macdonald C, Baker JG, Hitzeman A, Skinner CS, Brown CJ, Berger M, Lee SC, Cullum CM, Makris KI, Pham TH, Naik A, Tang V, Balentine CJ
    J Am Geriatr Soc 2026 Jan; 74(1): 177-185
    [PubMed ID: 41294300]

  • Identifying Barriers and Motivators to Increase Surgical Clinical Trial Participation for Older Veterans.
    Cher BAY, Lunardi N, Thornton M, Hitzeman A, Baker J, Macdonald C, Skinner CS, Brown CJ, Mai D, Marten EL, Makris K, Heredia MLM, Berger M, Cullum CM, Lee SC, Pham TH, Balentine CJ
    J Am Geriatr Soc 2026 Jan; 74(1): 161-168
    [PubMed ID: 41294297]

All Publications on PubMed