Birmingham Hip Surfacing...

[Spine Specialist]

When is BHS or any other hip surfacing coming to the United States of America? I cant believe they are already doing in India and becoming very successful with excellent results. It looks like american orthopods are gonna travel soon to India to get training on hip surfacing techniques....Is it FDA approved here?

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[FionaS]

You could all come to Birmingham if you wanted

Do you seriously mean there aren't any resurfacings done in the states? You can get that done at the little DGHs (kinda like a community hospital) here now.

So far, the long term results look pretty good too.

 

[Debridement]

When is BHS or any other hip surfacing coming to the United States of America? I cant believe they are already doing in India and becoming very successful with excellent results. It looks like american orthopods are gonna travel soon to India to get training on hip surfacing techniques....Is it FDA approved here?

first off, let me assure you that no self-respecting US orthopod is going to india to learn anything, other than how to make a great curry chicken.

second, there are lots of total joint surgeons who are doing this already. so no one is going anywhere. it is fda approved for investigational use, but that is fine b/c ppl are paying the same via insurance or medicare as they would for a total joint.

nuff said,

DB out

 

[Spine Specialist]

first off, let me assure you that no self-respecting US orthopod is going to india to learn anything, other than how to make a great curry chicken.

DB out

Dude, Go wherever the talent is.....it is nothing about losing your self respect....it is only about learning the art of surgery.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minutes/main689998_page4.shtml

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050216/asp/nation/story_4384364.asp

 

[Debridement]

Dude, Go wherever the talent is.....it is nothing about losing your self respect....it is only about learning the art of surgery.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minutes/main689998_page4.shtml

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050216/asp/nation/story_4384364.asp

Talent? Are you kidding us? I quote from the article you quoted:

"But why should foreign [patients] come here? Well, it’s even cheaper than Thailand for most procedures, with prices about 10 percent what they would be in the United States."

So it's not doctors who are going over there, but patients--who can't/won't pay for US care.

Second article:

"Had he got the surgery done in the US, he would have become a guinea pig for a clinical trial by an inexperienced doctor, he said"

This is a quote from an ignoramus. The guys at UCLA have done thousands of these procedures with Wright Medical's device. Others have similar numbers with other devices. I wouldn't call that 'inexperienced' or the patient a 'guinea pig'. It's the same device whether you get it in LA or Calcutta--even your article caught that detail.

No one takes you seriously--you and your ideas are a novelty and a joke.

DB out

 

[Tired]

No one takes you seriously--you and your ideas are a novelty and a joke.

Too funny.

As a health care consumer, I know that when I think "quality", my first thought is "Calcutta".

 

[DrGarfield]

Too funny.

when I think "quality", my first thought is "Calcutta".

Funny, sure!

True for Machher Jhol, not so sure about orthopaedics.

I'm a orthopaedic surgeon in India and have travelled through different parts of world, and I think the clinical and surgical skills of Indian orthopaedic surgeons is higher than most of the others, and at an average younger age too.
The one section they lack in is access to latest instruments and techs, which they will at par in next 5 years looking at the rate India is going these days.

I'd reckon, some of them are doing an overkill with BHRs these days putting them in older people than recommended and doing them for avascular necrosis where it is classically contraindicated.

 

[asdf123]

"Had he got the surgery done in the US, he would have become a guinea pig for a clinical trial by an inexperienced doctor, he said"

There is some truth to this statement. Many community surgeons in the US are traveling to Birmingham to learn this technique, returning to US to try it on their own patients. Some don't even bother to go to Birmingham, rather go to Canada or wherever they are teaching Birmingham hips.

Let's face it: with any relatively new technique, there will be a thousands of patients who become "guinea pigs" for lack of better term for their local orthopaedic surgeon. But patients don't know this. Last month, I scrubbed on a Birmingham hip for a 43 year old lady...the surgeon had just returned from Birmingham 2 weeks earlier and it was his first one!

Now there is no way of getting around this. Surgeons have to learn newer techniques and the way to learn is to do it! Obviously need proper training but at one point or another, it will be your first case of --fill in the blank --.