So here’s the deal…. if you don’t see any new blogs from me for a while, it doesn’t mean that I’ve gone on a round the world sailing adventure, or don’t care about blogging…. it is usually because my primary jobs of caring for our many patients and families, combined with care for my family have been taking all of my waking hours. There have been several really interesting patient stories that have come up where I told myself running from hospital to clinic “I’ve gotta blog that”, but finding the time to do it is another thing.
So here are a few things that I can share.
First, we’ve done a bunch of adolescent and adult scoliosis surgeries these past few weeks, including these two so far this week, Monday and Tuesday. The first one is a 25 you with a double thoracic curve, over 50 degrees with severe back pain. She is doing well, postop day 2, walking the halls a bit and very happy with her new posture without the big “hump.” Fixing her curve was a little more complex, due to her high upper thoracic curve, which needed to be fixed as well to help with shoulder balance. 
The other one is Rachel, who is a 14 yo yesterday who we straightened up nicely. Her surgery took about 3 hours, and her family was thrilled with her correction.
Also, we had our weekly quality meeting this morning, and here are our guest satisfaction numbers from last week:
Hey Clinic GFA
April 22nd – April 26th
45 patients
15% Best Clinic Experience Ever
85% Excellent
Perry 4/22/2013 Rating: Best Ever
Dr. Hey seems like such a caring and compassionate doctor.
Troy 4/26/2013 Rating: Best Ever
I’m just so tickled I had surgery. I feel so good now. Everyone here rocks and I’m very pleased with my care!
Cameron 4/26/2013 Rating: Best Ever
I cannot thank Dr. Hey enough and the whole staff for getting Cameron in today. We had a very good talk and we are very happy with the results. You will definitely see us back for a follow-up next year and I will make sure Cameron is in uniform!
Jordan 4/24/2013 Rating: Excellent
The doctor is very nice. We are hoping we don’t have to think about surgery.
Susan 4/25/2013 Rating: Excellent
I got a lot of good advice and information from Brittaney today.
Marilyn 4/23/2013 Rating: Excellent
Y’all are the best!
Other interesting things that have been happening:
I met this morning with some parents of a young girl with high grade L5S1 spondyolisthesis Grade 3, with severe back and radiating leg pain, considering surgery. Turns out her dad had the same thing as a child. This does tend to run in families, with high grade sacral slip being genetically linked.
Also saw a 7 month old with a 35 degree infantile scoliosis, which still was significantly scoliotic with repeat X-Rays. This will require careful follow-up.
We treated a lady with a C45 anterior spondylolisthesis, who developed severe myelopathy, losing use of hands and feet during severe vomiting spell over several days, which actually led to her spinal cord getting pinched more and bruised. I did emergent surgery for her, and she regained use of arms and legs and went to spinal cord rehab walking. Her surgery was a C4-6 anterior cervical decompression discectomy and fusion (ACDF)
Today I am seeing a few clinic patients, then going over to do a complex anterior-posterior scoliosis instrumentation and fusion.
We are also working on a very interesting research project with one of our students, looking at risk of curve progression for scoliosis in children, adolescents, young adults and older adults that have come into our clinic the past many years. Steve Mouro is our research intern, who is a applying to med school, and has done a great job with this project which we will be presenting on the podium at the Piedmont Orthopaedic Society Meeting this Friday! More on that later. Hope to videotape this and share slides on the blog. I am totally stoked about how our custom electronic health record and outcomes system that Jimmy, our programmer has built for us is now providing us with prospective outcome data that we can use to help improve care, and share with others via the literature and teaching and conferences!! Thanks Jimmy and Hey Clinic staff for making this happen.
Off to see patient in preop.
Have a great day!
Dr. Lloyd Hey — (the not too consistent blogger, but very consistent scoliosis surgeon).
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
http://www.heyclinic.com
(PS — I welcome comments on the blog, but please do not post a comment if you are advertising stuff. I just delete those, and it takes precious time. Thanks for your cooperation.)