Choosing the Spine Surgeon Who Is Right for You

The easy answer to this question is simple: carefully.

Tips for Choosing a Spine Surgeon for Disc Replacement
While thousands of surgeons have been trained in disc replacement techniques, very few have adopted it into their clinical practice with any regularity.

Certainly, the bare minimum requirements for choosing a surgeon would be to ensure he/she is a board certified or board eligible orthopedic or neurosurgical spine surgeon.  “Board certified” means that the doctor has gone through a rigorous testing and peer evaluation process by a specialized medical board.

You can ask your doctor if he/she is board certified, or you can research it online.

Some tips to get a better feel for the expertise of the surgeon are:

• Ask how long he/she has been performing disc replacement surgery and with what frequency they do this procedure.
• Make sure your surgeon performs many types of surgery and can tailor your treatment to be most appropriate for your condition. Not every patient is best served with a spinal fusion, nor is every patient best served with disc replacement.
• Make sure you have open communication with your physician.
• Make sure you trust and have confidence in your surgeon’s abilities.
• Look at the surgeon’s academic credentials or published papers.  Find out what they have written on disc replacement and if they are leaders in this specialized area of spine care.

A warning to patients:  Don’t depend on fancy advertising or marketing when choosing a surgeon.  Use all your resources when making a decision this critical. The Internet, medical directories and societies, as well as your regular physician can all be great resources in helping you decide which surgeon to go to.

There are also additional resources such as patient chat rooms and blogs where you can read about other patients’ experiences with surgeons.

Choosing a spine surgeon is a very important decision, and the more facts you can get, the better. Luckily, there are many resources to help you find a spine surgeon who is right for you.