How technical of a procedure is hip FAI surgery?

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tinyhandsbob

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I'm curious how technical/difficult of a procedure a hip arthroscopy for FAI + labral tear is- specifically is it one of those procedures where there is a lot to gain from seeing a surgeon who does them in high volume (more niche) or more of a generic procedure that many sports medicine fellowship trained surgeons can do well? I appreciate your input.

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Take this with a huge grain of salt because I’m only an incoming medical student who stumbled in here looking at how active this community is, but I worked for an excellent hip arthroscopist for several years.

In my (limited) experience from a private practice perspective not many sports surgeons were super proficient or didn’t have much interest in hip arthroscopy for FAI. This, I think, was a combination of being unfamiliar with the procedure and less than stellar reimbursement for the time it would personally take them (especially if closing the capsule). From a patient perspective less time under traction is a good thing and a surgeon who is more adept at hip arthroscopy would likely perform a better bony resection as there is some nuance in CAM resection to ensure symptomatic relief and also pincer resection for borderline dysplastic patients (and not indicating truly dysplastic hips in the first place if we’re worried about iatrogenic instability).
 
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