A native of Yakima, Dr. Schwaegler did his undergraduate work at Gonzaga University. He completed medical school in St Louis, and continued his orthopedic and advanced spine training at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago. He has been practicing in Seattle for more than twenty years.Dr. Schwaegler is committed to providing his patients the greatest amount of pain relief with the least amount of surgery. He is highly trained in the most innovative techniques. Most recently this has included minimally invasive surgical techniques which speed up patient recovery, as well as motion sparing techniques, which allow improvement of symptoms without resorting to fusion procedures. He is often found travelling the country teaching these techniques and procedures to other interested spine surgeons.