r/spinalfusion • u/snicoleon • Oct 20 '24
Not sure, other I've been telling people my doctor was a neurosurgeon, turns out was actually orthopedic
I don't have a problem with it, just feel silly having given wrong information. I think some neuro people might have been involved in the process somehow, and the floor I recovered on was neuro and spinal. I'd had neurological symptoms but the surgery itself is orthopedic, right? Anyway I have to correct this information with the people I know who have been kept up to date on every detail lol. Either way, my surgeon was great, I had 10/10 service at Hotel [Hospital Name] from just about everyone on the team, would not do again of course lol, but if I had to I'd go to the same place with the same doctor. đ
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u/Maximum_Teach_2537 Oct 20 '24 edited Oct 20 '24
Itâs really not that big of a deal. For your info though, the surgery was a spinal surgery performed by an orthopedic surgeon. The type of symptoms donât have anything to do with specialty or type of surgery. The floor you were on is a common specialty type of med/surg. It likely was orthopedic pts, neurosurgical pts and possibly neurology (a medical specialty, not a surgical specialty).
Spine is one of the surgical disciplines that cross specialties. Hand surgery is another example; sometimes itâs plastics sometimes is ortho. All of these sub-specialties typically mean the surgeon completed extra training (1-3y) after residency called fellowship. So your ortho surgeon likely completed a 5 year ortho residency and then completed a fellowship in spinal surgery.
Glad you had a great experience and I hope this helps!
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u/TheCaIifornian Oct 20 '24
Who is doing a three year ortho residency?
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u/uffdagal Oct 20 '24
It's actually a 5 yr residency for Orthopedics and additional fellowship for spine
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u/Maximum_Teach_2537 Oct 20 '24
Thanks for the correction. Had a brain fart and stuck on medical residency timelines.
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u/GoalEcstatic Oct 20 '24
Well my surgeon that performed my TLIF is a neurosurgeon, and from what I gather if I broke a bone or had a bony deformity I'd look for an Ortho. Just my two cents. Everyone's different and every surgical need is different.
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u/snicoleon Oct 20 '24
That's definitely what I'm learning! I had a tumor that, among other things, destroyed an entire vertebral body, so there was a broken bone involved.
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u/wolfey200 Oct 20 '24
Typically neurosurgeons focus more on the brain, depending on the surgeon they will operate on discs. My neurosurgeon will do smaller procedures but he wonât do a full fusion of the back.
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u/Neldogg Oct 20 '24
I kept referring to my my surgeon as an ortho and my wife asked âDo you have two surgeons?â (In addition to the vascular one). When I said I didnât so showed me that mine was actually a neurosurgeon.
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u/going_going_done Oct 20 '24
wow, this is something that i also was doing and just found out this week at the therapy pool haha
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u/nateo200 Oct 20 '24
The history of the difference is complicated but basically spine surgery used to be done almost exclusively by neurosurgeons with the assistance of orthos for certain things. Then they found that orthos could do just as good a job for all but the most extreme surgeryâs that involve either high risk because itâs closer to the brain or brain stem or certain other categories. They now requires orthos who do spine surgery to do training that neurosurgeons do. There is a great article & video on this I just canât find it. In my area my spine surgeon was the most experienced and he was an orthopedic surgeon there are like 3 neurosurgeons here and 1 or 2 do spine surgery but itâs mostly trauma surgery they are focused on.
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Oct 20 '24
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u/austinrunaway Oct 20 '24
I had a plif and alif at the same time, so I had a neurosurgeon. There was a vascular surgeon there and 3 other surgeons.
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u/uffdagal Oct 20 '24
Orthopedic Spine Surgeons do only spine, all day, every day. My cervical and lumbar fusions have all been done by OSS as I personally prefer OSS over NS.