Early Surgery Can Be Risky

Up to 30% of joint replacements in this country are performed what we would call prematurely.

Problem number three, the surgical emphasis. It's hard for a surgeon to say, well, I'm not going to emphasize surgery. That's a difficult cell. And certainly surgery in this country is very safe in most cases. But we are driving more and more people to surgery early. And this has been a problem that's been identified in orthopedics. We're doing joint replacement surgery and reconstructive surgeries on younger and younger patients. For instance, there are, you know, about 30 to 40% of pediatric athletes will have some sort of surgical procedure by the time they reach age of majority. I mean, I had in one year, I had in a school outside of wichita Falls with 15 basketball players. I had nine out with ACLs in one year. So we are performing surgery earlier, we're performing surgery for more things. And then obviously, once we get to the reconstructive options, you know, an older patient, we're performing joint replacements on younger and younger people. And this is creating problems down the road as up to 30% of joint replacements in this country are performing what we would call prematurely. So that's like early surgical interventions, maybe not as bad arthritis. You know, it's all based on the patient's symptoms. And have we run them through the system? Have they done the conservative management to get to that point? But we're making it easier and easier for people to reach the point where they have to have a surgery. That's something that I'm concerned about.