I quit my surgical spine practice in 2019 because I was seeing so much surgery performed on normally aging spines. They were causing severe damage to people’s spines and destroying their lives. Frequently, the impact was catastrophic. At the same time, I was witnessing hundreds of patients having their pain … Read More
Objectives: Although there is no question about the dedication of physicians to providing excellent care, the rigors of training, the demands of practice, and the business of medicine have made it increasingly difficult to treat you – a person. A major factor is doctors are not allowed the time it … Read More
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have never met or worked with. One of most powerful aspects of the DOC process is that is simply a structure that presents well-established documented treatments. Once a person understands the … Read More
When the DOC project began to evolve in 1999 it was my feeling that if there was a structural problem that it first needed to be dealt with surgically and then we could move ahead with the rest of the protocols. I define a structural problem as one that can be identified … Read More
Mainstream medicine is frequently not offering you effective care. Many procedures performed for spinal problems have been documented to be ineffective. Much of the problem stems from the corporatization of medicine where the interventions that have been proven to be effective, such as ACT (acceptance commitment therapy) (1), mindfulness-based stress … Read More
I received this email from a physical therapist on the East Coast, who I’ve never met. He’d heard about my work on a podcast. Before you read this letter, I’d like to emphasize that research has documented for decades that arthritis, bone spurs, disc degeneration, disc bulges and herniations are … Read More
“Prehab” is refers to a patient engaging in a rehabilitation process before surgery. There are well-documented factors that affect pain and surgical outcomes. It’s important to implement treatments to address all of them prior to undergoing a procedure with significant risks. Chronic pain infiltrates every aspect of life. You have … Read More
Deciding whether to undergo spine surgery is one of the most important choices you will ever make. Currently, failed spine surgery is so common there is even a separate diagnosis for it – “Failed Back Surgery Syndrome.” You do not want to become one of these people, as it usually … Read More
A seventy-three-year-old woman—let’s call her Dorothy for the sake of this story—was understandably apprehensive. She had just been told that she needed an eight-level spine fusion from her tenth thoracic vertebra to her pelvis, so she came to me for a second opinion. Dorothy was a retired National Guard armed … Read More
When I began my surgical practice in 1986, I was convinced that spine surgery was a definitive solution for pain, and I aggressively offered many patients surgery. I eventually learned much better ways to solve pain; usually without surgery. I never dreamed that even surgical patients could have their pain … Read More