Orthopedics and joints

Orthopedic surgeons, physiatrists, and their patients writing on KevinMD about musculoskeletal care: back pain and the procedures that can weaken a young spine, knee and joint surgery, spinal stenosis treated least invasive first, non-opioid pain management and how it is paid, orthopedic residency and the women entering it, and what a patient in pain needs to be asked. Two maintained records draw on this archive: Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words and Surgeons and surgery: what surgeons say, in their own words.

September 30, 2026Sep 30, 2026

Every joint replacement patient leaves my office with a plan. When to walk, how to ice, when to drive, when to come back. We talk about stairs, showers, sleep, and the first night home. What most of them do not leave with is an answer to a question they are thinking about and almost never ask: When can I have sex again?

They don’t ask, and too often we don’t offer. …

Physician

Choosing a limb lengthening surgeon requires accountability

Hrayr Basmajian, MD

September 23, 2026Sep 23, 2026

Patients considering cosmetic limb lengthening usually begin with one question: How much height can be gained? That question is understandable, but it should not drive the decision. The more important issue is who will remain responsible for the patient's care…

Cosmetic limb lengthening is often presented as a procedure that increases height. Technically, that is the goal, but it …

Patient

Patient communication ends when the patient understands

Diane Bruno

September 19, 2026Sep 19, 2026

For decades, we have been told the stories of medicine through the eyes of the people who provide it. Medical dramas place doctors and nurses at the center of the narrative: the brilliant surgeon making impossible decisions, the exhausted emergency physician racing against time, the nurse carrying the emotional weight of caring for patients through crisis. Even in today’s most authentic medical dramas, including The Pitt, patients are often catalysts …

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Conditions and Diseases

Non-opioid pain management gets separate pay in 2026

Stephanie Muh, MD

September 19, 2026Sep 19, 2026

As the third-highest opioid-prescribing medical specialty representing 6 to 8 percent of all U.S. opioid prescriptions, orthopedic surgeons carry an outsized share of responsibility for reducing patients’ opioid exposure. Orthopedic procedures dominate this pattern as they represent four of the five surgeries with the highest opioid prescription rates among patients aged 45 to 64. Even more alarming, orthopedic surgeons often treat young and active patients, and for many, surgery …

Conditions and Diseases

Barriers to yoga practice, and how to lower them

Kaivalya Kasturi, Duc Chung, MD, MBA, Samuel Doty, MD, and Karim Amireh, MD

September 15, 2026Sep 15, 2026

Musculoskeletal and mental-health conditions are among the most consequential and costly health challenges in the United States. Musculoskeletal conditions affect more than one-third of U.S. adults and account for more than $300 billion in medical spending, while mental illness is estimated to cost the broader U.S. economy approximately $282 billion annually. Although many of these conditions are chronic and cannot be addressed through a single universally effective intervention, …

Physician

Patient experience in urgent care is a workflow issue too

Manoj Sreedharan, MD

September 11, 2026Sep 11, 2026

When I joined OrthoIllinois in 2022 and took on leadership responsibilities at Injury Express, our orthopedic urgent care practice was already delivering high-quality clinical care. But as I became more involved in reviewing our patient-experience data, I noticed that some…

In 2022, our overall patient satisfaction score was 92.10 percent. When we looked …

Conditions and Diseases

7 questions to ask before pain treatment begins

Ben Lerner, DC

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

When pain interferes with work, exercise, sleep, or everyday movement, it is natural to look for the fastest possible solution. Patients often arrive at an appointment asking whether a particular treatment will "fix" a painful knee, back, shoulder, or hip.…

Before choosing any non-surgical approach, patients should first understand what may be causing the pain, what the …

Physician

How does a rehabilitation physician actually think?

Gabrielle Nguyen, MD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

It's not a simple question, and one that many physicians outside our specialty still find surprisingly difficult to define. Have you ever called a rehab consult and struggled to understand why you need one? Many have. The truth is, physiatrists…

It’s not a simple question, and one that many physicians outside our specialty still find surprisingly difficult to define. Have you ever called a rehab consult and struggled to understand why you need one? Many have. The truth is, physiatrists often think differently. Every specialty develops its own lens through which it views disease. A surgeon asks whether a problem can be repaired. A neurologist localizes it. An oncologist determines …

Conditions and Diseases

Being dismissed by a doctor because I stock retail

Jennifer Constance Hart

August 25, 2026Aug 25, 2026

My story begins the weekend before the Fourth of July. We were celebrating at our friend, the window guy's, house on June 27th. Tom decided to have the party a weekend early because this year marks the 250th anniversary of…

My story begins the weekend before the Fourth of July. We were celebrating at our friend, the window guy’s, house on June 27th. Tom decided to have the party a weekend early because this year marks the 250th anniversary of our country, and he knew the holiday weekend would be packed with other celebrations.

That Saturday, I had a stinging sensation in my neck and my arm was sore. I was …

Podcast

A back procedure that can weaken a young spine [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

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A young patient walks in with ordinary back pain and leaves on a path that can quietly weaken the muscle holding the spine together. Francisco M. Torres is an interventional physiatrist who noticed these patients coming back to him sooner, and traced it to radiofrequency ablation denervating the multifidus, the back’s most important stabilizer, until the muscle atrophies and fills …

Conditions and Diseases

6 lumbar spinal stenosis treatments, least invasive first

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is one of the most common causes of pain and disability in older adults. Characterized by narrowing of the spinal canal that compresses neural elements, it classically produces neurogenic claudication that presents itself with leg pain, numbness, or weakness provoked by standing or walking and relieved by sitting or flexion. With an estimated prevalence of 11 percent among older adults in the United States and …

Physician

Return-to-play decisions begin long before the whistle

Ann Lebeck, MD

August 16, 2026Aug 16, 2026

Friday nights are loud. The student section is impossible to miss. Faces painted in school colors, homemade signs held high, voices already hoarse before kickoff. The marching band fills every pause with music while parents and grandparents search the field…

Friday nights are loud.

The student section is impossible to miss. Faces painted in school colors, homemade signs held high, voices already hoarse before kickoff. The marching band fills every pause with music while parents and grandparents search the field for familiar jersey numbers. I hardly notice any of it.

By the time the crowd begins finding their seats, I’ve already been watching the …

Medical Education

In 2026, the surgical backlog has a training bottleneck

Danny Goel, MD

August 15, 2026Aug 15, 2026

Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That's necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody's pricing in is how long it takes…

Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That’s necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody’s pricing in is how long it takes to produce a surgeon who can operate independently, and that number is quietly getting longer. Cuts in one place always show up in another, and it’s often education that takes …

Physician

Physician peer review must balance safety and fairness

Babajide Ogunseinde, MD

August 14, 2026Aug 14, 2026

Medicine is one of the few professions in which a colleague may understand exactly how difficult the journey has been and simultaneously possess enormous influence over whether another physician is permitted to continue that journey. Becoming a physician requires years…

Becoming a physician requires years of education, medical school, residency, examinations, credentialing, sacrifice, and continual professional development. For surgeons, the pathway often includes additional fellowship training and years spent developing technical judgment that cannot be acquired …

Conditions and Diseases

How the benefits of active sitting change desk work

Turner Osler, MD

August 14, 2026Aug 14, 2026

"That which is used develops; that which is not used wastes away." Hippocrates wrote that around 450 B.C., and it turns out he understood office ergonomics better than we do. Dozens of companies sell "ergonomic" office chairs, and they are…

“That which is used develops; that which is not used wastes away.” Hippocrates wrote that around 450 B.C., and it turns out he understood office ergonomics better than we do.

Dozens of companies sell “ergonomic” office chairs, and they are all built around the same idea: a backrest, usually armrests, and always lumbar support. If this design solved the problem of sitting, why do 80 percent of Americans eventually develop …

Podcast

Why soldiers are athletes and their bodies pay for it [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

August 12, 2026Aug 12, 2026

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A 30-year-old soldier can have the knees of a 60-year-old. Not from one bad injury, but from carrying a load every single day for years. Family medicine and sports medicine physician Ann Lebeck returns to explain why she came to see soldiers as tactical athletes, and what that means for their bodies. This episode is based on her article “Read more…

Why soldiers are athletes and their bodies pay for it [PODCAST]

Podcast

When patients ask for a knee surgery brand they don’t understand [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

August 10, 2026Aug 10, 2026

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A patient asked for her knee surgery by its brand name. She used the term perfectly. She just had no idea what it actually meant. Orthopedic surgeon Cory Calendine, who does nearly 700 to 800 hip and knee replacements a year, returns to unpack how marketing is quietly reshaping what patients ask for in the exam room. This episode is …

Conditions and Diseases

A physical therapy referral needs more than a signature

Francisco M. Torres, MD

August 1, 2026Aug 1, 2026

One of the reasons I chose to specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) was influenced by Puerto Rico's distinctive regulations governing physical therapy. At the time I trained, a physical therapy practice could not legally operate without a physiatrist's…

One of the reasons I chose to specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) was influenced by Puerto Rico’s distinctive regulations governing physical therapy. At the time I trained, a physical therapy practice could not legally operate without a physiatrist’s license on file. Only a physiatrist could refer a patient to physical therapy, and only a physiatrist’s credentials permitted the clinic to function, as defined under Puerto Rico’s …

Conditions and Diseases

What the children of physicians carry

Alyssa Kressel

July 24, 2026Jul 24, 2026

Back when I was a senior in college, I wrote a peer recommendation for my pre-med boyfriend's medical school application. Nearly two decades later, that boyfriend is my husband, the father of my adorable children and a surgeon who I…

Back when I was a senior in college, I wrote a peer recommendation for my pre-med boyfriend’s medical school application. Nearly two decades later, that boyfriend is my husband, the father of my adorable children and a surgeon who I am incredibly proud of.

I may just have my B.S. and no M.D. or PhD after my name but I’ve certainly put in my time throughout the past fifteen-plus years of …

Read more…

What the children of physicians carry

Conditions and Diseases

What bull riding taught me about sports medicine gaps

Ann Lebeck, MD

July 19, 2026Jul 19, 2026

It was our first night at a bull riding event, Shoot Out Arena in Tombstone, Arizona, an August night, and I had no idea yet what any of this actually looked like up close. We were sitting beside the chutes…

It was our first night at a bull riding event, Shoot Out Arena in Tombstone, Arizona, an August night, and I had no idea yet what any of this actually looked like up close.

We were sitting beside the chutes in the VIP section. The rider gave the nod, the gate swung open, and the clock started. Bull and rider came out together …

Orthopedics and joints

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