surgical decision-making Archives

Eight-Level Spine Fusion? No!

posted in: Stage 5, Stage 5: Step 4 |

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

Am I Operating on Your Pain or Anxiety?

posted in: Defining the problem of RUTs, RUTs, Stage 5, Stage 5: Step 3 |

My surgical decision-making dramatically changed over the last five years of my practice. In spite of watching so many successes of people healing from chronic pain without surgery, I still had a surgical mindset and was always looking for a surgical lesion that I could “fix”. In the first edition … Read More