Orthopedic Surgeons John Uribe, M.D. and Anthony Miniaci, M.D., Chief Medical Executive and Deputy Chief Medical Executive respectively, sit down and talk all things Orthopedic Care on this episode of Speaking from the Hip, brought to you by Baptist Health Orthopedic Care.
Hello and welcome to, speaking from the hip, a discussion on orthopedic care. My name is Reggie Laroche, Assistant Vice President at Baptist Health Orthopedic Care and your host today. So joining me again today are two instrumental men in the world of orthopedics. Doctor John Dee and Dr Anthony Maniaci, who are both orthopedic surgeons in the field of sports medicine. And Dr is the Chief Medical Executive of Baptist Health orthopedic Care and Dr Maniaci is the Deputy Chief Medical Executive of orthopedic Care. So, gentlemen, thank you again for joining me today. So Dr Uribe, can you bring the viewers up to speed on what are the common orthopedic injuries that we're seeing these days in the clinic? Well, certainly in my clinic, it's more shoulders and elbows and maybe overuse sports type of injuries, whether it be shoulder instability or shoulder arthritis, a lot of ligament injuries to the knee, municipal tears, those kinds of things across the spectrum of orthopedics. Obviously, it's much greater. I think the demographics with the population, we have, we do a large volume of joint replacements, starting with the hip, the knees, the ankles, that kind of thing. We also in, in terms of the non operative treatment of arthritic type of conditions. Those are probably the most common things we see and Dr Maniaci, I guess um hearing um Dr Uribe's response with, As the population also continues to grow into aged more people are getting older, living a little bit longer with joint replacements. Do we see current trends say in joint replacements? Are, are there other trends that we should anticipate seeing? Yeah, I agree 100% with John in terms of the types of injuries. But you know, orthopedics is actually a real spectrum and you can't really avoid orthopedic surgeons at some point in your life, you're probably going to meet one and you know, from young pediatric injuries, overuse injuries, athletic injuries to the patients who need some form of joint replacement because of significant pain and disability. I think what we're seeing though in the population is that patients are becoming more and more active and they're staying more active into their later, later years and they want, they don't want to be debilitated or have any form of dysfunction. So they want to have pain free, good motion and abilities to do all the activities that they want to do. And that's a great great point about being pain free, being able to move all their joints. But for those athletes, weekend warriors that may delay care, you know, you mentioned non operative physicians that we have that deal in sports medicine. What is your message to them if they're holding off or holding back from seeking care? So, obviously, orthopedics is a quality of life specialty and there is that gray area where your joints start to break down your muscles, tear and you're rehabbing. And there is a lot going on in the terms of the research for biologics and other forms of non operative treatment for these type of conditions. And our primary cares do a great job in doing that. But also directing the rehabilitation of these injuries is also incredibly important. And that's I think with Baptist Health to its its more orthopedics as well as as rehabilitation as these patients come in. And we were, you know, you guys are talking about trends and the types of injuries or patients that you see um when you mentioned biologics. So when it comes to advancements in either surgery or technology, um is there a picture that you could paint as to where Baptist health orthopedic care may be driving? Sure, orthopedics has actually been a leader in advancements and innovations over the number of years, I am still uh I was able to train actually with some of the people who did the very first arthroscopic procedures. And if you think that, you know, arthroscopy back in the 1960s was just very very young specialty and nobody thought that it was actually going to work. And now all of the things that we do arthroscopic you can see that orthopedic surgeons and researchers in the orthopedic field are very innovative and advancing. So that the doctor mentioned biologics, we're doing a lot of work on biologics, not just injection type therapies with the use of enhancement agents, but also in terms of scaffolds to help with healing of soft tissues and give structural integrity to some of the tissues. But we're also even on the joint side, joint replacement side, Uh there's a lot of work being done on minimally invasive procedures, taking less bone away, leaving the patient's own anatomy closer to what it was originally, so that patients have a better function and the use of robotics and use of computer navigation and all this kind of stuff. And we have all of that at Baptist Health. I think he's being very modest because because Tony helped develop a change in paradigm of how we do shoulder arthur plastic where instead of doing a, a significant cutting of the bone and replacing the entire joint, you can maintain your anatomy much, much closer to what you were given originally and resurface it and, and get back to full activities without restriction and, and he's brought that to, to us and, and we're in the process of really getting it perfected down here. Kudos to you on that achievement. Um So we talked about technology, some biologics prevention. Is there an opportunity for us to do more in that space to prevent orthopedic? Let's say certain conditions or to encourage um the utilization of our physical therapy centers. Well, I'll tell you as you grow older, you naturally lose muscle mass. And one of the things that we have found in terms of even in the treatment of arthritic conditions is if, if you can maintain your muscle mass and your, and your strength that, that, that goes a long way in preventing injuries, but also in absorbing the shock of the ground and continuing to be able to maintain your productivity and your activity level as you grow older. And so That's been something that we push. At least I know I push that a lot in my clinic as well as maintenance of weight. There you go. No, I, I agree 100% you know, it's a little bit of a double edged sword because I'm sure everybody goes to the doctor and they hear, hey, you've got to maintain your activity, you've got to do more, lose weight and do all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, then you go to the activity and if you're not in the best physical condition, you can get injured so that it's important that you go to the activities, you understand what you're doing, you get in good physical shape, you maintain your flexibility and a little bit of guidance when you're doing these activities is not a bad thing. That is great. And I think that's definitely a great place to end it. You know, we kind of wrapped up on time. So again, thank you, doctor. You're a doctor Maniaci for your time, your great insight into the world of orthopedics. Until next time we do this again. Thanks.