Dr. Joshua John-Ram Schacter explains why technically perfect surgeries sometimes fail. Depression, anxiety, infection, and missed physical therapy due to cost or lost insurance can all sabotage the result. Surgery should be a last resort, not a first option.
We spend a lot of time talking to patients about surgery and their possible outcomes and what they can expect. And it's very important for us to recognize that even the best surgery can have a less than desirable outcome. It can be a technically perfect procedure that can look perfect on X ray, that can look perfect from a soft tissue perspective, and still it either has chronic pain or dysfunction or some other problem. And so, yes, it's important for us as patients and as certainly as surgeons and physicians to understand that not every surgery, even though it might go technically perfect, turns out perfect. There are many factors that can affect your outcome as a surgical patient. One certainly can be your surgical technique. Two can be luck. I mean, infection, stiffness, blood clots, some of these things that are not necessarily within your control can occur. But it's also other factors that can affect your surgical outcome. For instance, depression, anxiety can certainly affect the way that we respond and heal after a major surgery. Financial factors. If your insurance drops you, if you can't afford your physical therapy, or if your not able to perform your physical therapy as you should, that certainly can affect your surgical outcome. And so we can definitely have the perfect surgery that doesn't turn out as we would expect. That's why we need to leave surgery as the last resort. We need to have exhausted all of our myriad of options before we proceed with a surgical intervention. Now, surgery may be the right option for you, but it should only be after a lot of consideration.
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