Some months ago, my grandfather fell at home and broke his hip. Before we knew it, he was on the ambulance zigzagging his way to the hospital, then on traction with the orthopaedic surgeon holding up an X-ray and talking about hip replacement surgery.
As a doctor myself, I am no stranger to surgery, but it struck me that my experience with hip (and knee) replacement surgery is limited to my orthopaedic rotation as a junior doctor more than a decade ago. Yes, my husband is an orthopaedic surgeon, but there’s nothing like first hand knowledge - especially when it comes to a family member.
My grandfather has a shiny new hip now and is up and walking around as usual, thanks to Dr.Wong Chya Wei/ Dr.Wong Tung Sing, so that’s good.
How about me?
I realised that we all have, to quote P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, ‘aged relatives’, and as time drips silently by, joints do give way. I took it upon myself to learn more about this fascinating field of orthopaedics. And who better to learn from than the people who replace hips and knees every day?
And so I told myself, the next time my husband was off for a session, I would tag along and immerse myself in something new.
Opportunity knocked in the form of the Hip and Knee Surgery Course in Ipoh in March 2019. Arthroworld Sdn Bhd, a growing implant company invited my husband to operate with Dr.Loh Choong Sing of KPJ Ipoh and Dr.Tai Cheh Chin of Ramsay Sime Darby Medical Centre over the weekend to experience their state of the art hip and knee implants first hand. I didn’t operate of course, but I sat in for the sessions with Dr.Tai Cheh Chin and the distinguished panel of surgeons and academics from Korea (Dr.Hyeong Jo Yoon of Sungkyunkwan University, Dr.Joe-Hwi Nho of Soonchunhyang University Hospital, Dr.Son Wan-Su of Wiltse Memorial Hospital Anyang) where we discussed the latest advances in joint replacement surgery.
Major surgery may seem a daunting ordeal, but in fact, nearly all patients can stand up and walk within a day or two after their hip or knee replacement surgery, and they are usually able to resume travelling the world within a few weeks. Gone are the days of lying in bed for weeks swathed in bandages and being fed bland food through a bitter plastic tube.
In current orthopaedic practice, patients (and might I say surgeons) are spoilt for choice when it comes to picking an implant to use to replace joint. There are cemented, cementless and hybrid, stainless steel, polyethylene and ceramic hips, fixed and mobile bearing knees made of cobalt chromium, oxynium and the like. To be honest, to the average patient, these could well make up components of the space shuttle.
Arthroworld Sdn Bhd carries a range of implants, from the Korean Corentec hips and knees to the Taiwanese UOC knee replacement implants, besides striving to refine joint replacement surgery with the setting up of Quill Orthopaedic Centre in Petaling Jaya. One thing that its founder, Mr.Tan Choon Poh had to say during the meeting was that the most important thing is to choose a good implant that you are familiar with.
I’d say you could say the same about choosing your surgeon.
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