Dr. Heggeness completed his PhD at UC San Diego in membrane biology, and a postdoc at Rockefeller University in Virology. He received his MD from the University of Miami. After a residency in Orthopaedic Surgery, he completing a fellowship in Spine Surgery at the University of Toronto. He then joined the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine where he became Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery in 2004. He moved take the Orthopaedic Surgery Chair at University of Kansas in Wichita in 2013. He has 84 publications and 4 issued patents.
His interest has centered on intraosseous nerves, and recently, nerve derived stem cells.