••• Featured Posts •••
-
Shoulder Dislocation in Adolescents: There’s Still A Lot To Learn
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything. Thomas Edison A recent presentation at the American Arthroscopy Association of North America tried to answer the question of why some adolescents re-dislocate their shoulder and others do not after shoulder instability repair.
-
You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
I take call about 5-6 days per month which means that I take care of patients that come into the hospital with fractures. A few weeks ago I treated a woman who had a hip fracture (I treat a lot of hip, ankle and wrist fractures when on call). The ER staff who gave me…
-
Sex and Shoulder Pain: It’s an Issue
The Tough Cases and Lasting Impacts Unfortunately, he still has limitations: mostly weakness and pain with lifting beyond 10 or 20 lbs. He also has difficulty supporting his weight on the involved arm. These impairments are likely permanent. We have talked about this on multiple occasions. Sadly, I cannot make everyone 100% better. These are…
-
Should You Wear A Sling After Shoulder Surgery?
A recent study in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery compared outcomes of patients who had rotator cuff surgery based on how faithful they were with wearing their sling. They asked 50 patients undergoing rotator cuff repair to wear an abduction sling for the first
-
“When Can I Drive After Surgery?”
This is one of the most frequent questions that I get from patients. And it’s not an easy one to answer. Recently a team at The Hospital for Joint Diseases led by one of my shoulder fellowship mentors Dr. Laith Jazrawi produced a study that makes some recommendations about safe driving after labrum and rotator…
-
When Having More Money May Be Bad For Your Kids’ Health
More money, more problems The Notorius B.I.G. There is a class of health research focused on relating socioeconomic status with overall health outcomes. In most cases if you have more money, you have better health.
-
Rotator Cuff Tears: Stranger Than You’d Think
No doubt about it, rotator cuff tears can be confusing. It’s not that you can’t understand the idea of having a tear in your tendon. That’s easy. It’s just that treating them can be counterintutive: some get better with therapy and others don’t. Some cause significant pain and others don’t. Some need surgery and others don’t.
-
“Do The Implants Have To Come Out?”
As a shoulder and elbow surgeon a lot of operations that I perform involve implanting hardware to help solve someone’s problem. Examples of hardware include plates and screws, joint replacement implants and arthroscopic anchors. When someone asks whether hardware needs to be removed in the future they usually are referring to plates and screws that…
-
How Do You Know If Your Orthopedic Surgeon Is Good?
Heuristics are “rules of thumb” that people use to make decisions in situations that involve uncertainty. Taleb writes about them in depth and I enjoy his writing. The daily practice of medicine requires making frequent high stakes decision with incomplete knowledge. Where “evidence based medicine” leaves off, heuristics often take over. I think both doctors…