Brian Cole, MD, MBA, orthopedic surgeon at Chicago-based Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush and Chicago Bulls' team physician, "took off his scrubs" to deliver an insightful presentation about the multitude of contemporary options to treat patients with orthopedic injuries. His TEDx Talk presentation is titled, "Sparing the Scalpel: A Surgeon's Perspective on the Future of Orthopedics."
"In the end, the only thing that matters is to get that athlete, or the individual, back to an active state in a timely fashion, and to prevent re-injury," Dr. Cole said. "That's really the crux of what we do every single day."
Here are six presentation highlights.
1. Medical approach. The late pediatrician Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD, proposed an idea that has stuck with Dr. Cole throughout his career — tests are often over-utilized in medicine. Guided by Dr. Dr. Mendelsohn's concepts, Dr. Cole has ensured he focuses on treating the patient, not the X-ray or the MRI.
"Role models are a lot like life's buffet. We can meet lots and lots of people and take bits and pieces of each of them and that's a lot of how we evolve over time," said Dr. Cole.
2. Pain. Pain is subjective, and even if it's not life threatening, it can severely impact an individual's life.
"We try to never place value judgments on what people are looking for," said Dr. Cole. "We are dealing with patients who are generally healthy, but would like to have restored function."
Associated with pain is function, and that's where Dr. Cole enters the picture, helping patients restore function.
3. Past, present and future. Upon initial visits, most patients are focused on what they did wrong to cause the pain. Dr. Cole always responds by saying the past is unchangeable, and most conditions are degenerative or genetic.
Once they move beyond what caused their pain, most patients are then primarily concerned about their present loss of function.
Dr. Cole also said patients worry about the future — they are concerned if they don't treat their pain now, it will advance to an unbearable state.
4. Do more with less. Medical school teaches students to take a patient's history, conduct a physical exam and render a differential diagnosis. "Most of the time we rely on these basic components and we do just fine," said Dr. Cole. Often patients seek more testing, such as an MRI, but advanced testing often doesn't impact the treatment plan.
Patients should consider if they can "coexist with the problem," or if the pain is intolerable.
5. Choosing surgery. Dr. Cole said providers should not consider surgery unless a patient's symptoms are elevated to a level where something must be done. Then, patients should seek and execute all relevant non-surgical options.
If non-surgical options fall short of a patient's desired outcome, surgery may be the next step. "Can we do it with a very predictable outcome that has a meaningful upside, with minimal risk?" said Dr. Cole.
6. Modern medicine. "We live in this world where we have a volume of activities, and we can either reduce the activities to let us adapt, or we can expand our joints' ability to tolerate the demands of the world," said Dr. Cole. "And that's where modern medicine comes in."
Take control of your body's health by exercising and implementing a nutritious diet. Dr. Cole also commented on the promise of stem cells, three-dimensional printing and bioabsorbable implants. He also promoted the concept of combining surgery with biologic therapy.
"It would not be accurate to say that most things can be cured in my world without surgery…" said Dr. Cole. "The outcomes could be spectacular, but they're not always spectacular, and that's where the future can really help us."
Watch Dr. Cole's TEDx Talk here.