How “Not” to pick an Ortho. Doc.
“Disclaimer: This post is based on my personal experiences. For any health or medical advice, please consult a professional.”
My patients who made bad decisions. 2021
The end of my career, I worked for 7 years as a home health PT. The company I worked for only saw post-op total knee and total hip replacement patients. It you’re have surgery of any kind, you should do your research and try to find the best. However, when someone is replacing a whole joint, you absoluteyly want to have the best. So many things can go wrong such as getting an infection and also having the wrong size joint put in among other things. I can name two total joint replacement specialists in Atlanta that are highly regarded as the best and I would agree; Dr. Mark Hanna and Dr. Ken Kress. If someone were to need a revision of a joint replacement, then I have other names. If you don’t want to end up with a revision, you would do well with one of these two guys.
This week I started working w/ a pt who is a surgeon at a local hospital. Right now, he is planning on going back to work for a night shift in about 2 wks. I asked him what that would involve and he said, “mostly sitting or a little standing/walking down to the ER to do an emergency appendectomy” (ok, sure). Even if he is doing well, I don’t think he’ll be able to do that in 2 wks. Also, his orthopedic surgeon is not one I think gets all that great of results. The patient sort of questioned me on that. The wife (retired nurse) says she knows Dr. Hanna is good…why didn’t he go w/ Dr. Hanna? He had mentioned on his first day that he is friends with the orthopedica surgeon; not a great reason to go with a particular doctor especially for your knee replacement.
I have had this situation a couple times before. One pt went to a surgeon out of N. Fulton hospital that I would never recommend. He can have good outcomes but he has plenty of bad outcomes-it wouldn’t be worth risking it. This pt knew that he had heard that Dr. Hanna and Dr. Kress were the best. He had plenty of friends that had been to them. BUT…this guy went to the doctor out of N. Fulton because HE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH HIM! OK>>>>> Another patient also did not go with Kress or Hanna because she knows they are the best…..so she went with another doctor because she felt like she wouldn’t get personal attention from the best doctors. In both cases, these 2 TKR’s (total knee replacement) had a terrible outcome, at least when I was working with them. Both patients asked me if they should have used a different doctor. Of course, you as a therapist cannot tell them the truth but geez sometimes people are a little dumb. If a doctor is the best, go to the best.
ADDENDUM: my surgeon is 10 days post-op and he scheduled himself for a shift. We’ll see how he does. I do not recommend it but you can never tell these people anything. He said he’ll mostly be sitting around or may have to walk down to the ER. If he had to do surgery it might be something like an emergency appendectomy. His shift is from 4-11:00 at night. We’ll see how he feels tomorrow. Crazy.
11/7/2024. I don’t remember how any of these patients turned out but I would not be surprised if I heard they never did well following their joint replacement.