Dr. James Raley

Dr. James Raley attended college and medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he completed a combined undergraduate and graduate degree through the Rural Medical Scholars Program. It was there that he met his wife, Susanna, who is also a physician. After medical school, they moved to Augusta, Georgia, where Dr. Raley pursued orthopedic training and Susanna pursued obstetrics training. During that time, they were blessed with two children, Walt and Magnolia, and since moving to Huntsville, they have welcomed a two more boys, Ward and Beau.

Dr. Raley completed his training with an emphasis on shoulder, hip, and knee reconstruction at the Advanced Center for Joint Replacement at Northside Hospital. There, he pursued dedicated subspecialty training in primary hip and knee replacement, complex hip and knee replacement, and revision hip and knee replacement.

Dr. Raley is a member of several professional societies, including the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons, the Anterior Hip Foundation, and the Personalized Arthroplasty Society. These organizations emphasize restoring function by reproducing a patient’s pre-arthritic anatomy through joint replacement.

Dr. Raley has a special interest in same-day discharge joint replacement, with a focus on muscle sparing techniques and robotic surgery which allows for a patient specific approach to each joint replacement. Dr. Raley performs the anterior approach as his primary approach for hip replacement and he performs kinematically aligned total knee replacements. This customized approach reproduces each patient’s natural anatomy before the development of arthritis. Avoiding ligament releases during joint replacement gives patients a more natural felling knee after knee replacement.

Outside of medicine, Dr. Raley enjoys the lake and the pool with his family, pickleball, fly fishing, and participating in mission work. He is an active member of Whitesburg Baptist Church and the Huntsville Fly Fishing Club.

“I take great joy in offering my patients an evidence-based approach to minimizing the risks associated with joint replacement, with the goal of restoring function and quality of life for the long haul.”