Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai has remained a leader in spine surgery on the West Coast, and its department co-directors said they focus on keeping their staff sharp.
In August, Alexander Tuchman, MD, was named co-director of Cedars-Sinai Spine Center and is working alongside David Skaggs, MD. And this year Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was on U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals for Orthopedics" and "Best Hospitals for Neurology and Neurosurgery" 2024-25 lists. It was also recognized for orthopedics by Newsweek.
"Cedars is one of the fastest-growing academic medical centers in the country, and I think spine has been one of the leaders in terms of growth and improvement in both patient care and research," Dr. Tuchman told Becker's. "We've seen extensive advancements in our fellowship growth and training of both neurosurgeons, surgical and orthopedic residents, with both programs expanding in terms of a number of trainees over the past few years. It's a super exciting time. Our neurosurgery department is one of the highest funded research programs in the country — higher than most major university-based academic centers in terms of NIH funding. We've seen that growth within the spine department as well, and our clinical lines have been improving significantly."
In recent years Cedars-Sinai has also recruited multiple spine surgeons and incorporated Robert Watkins, MD, as part of the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center, Dr. Skaggs said. He said finding and keeping talent boils down to values.
"It's easy to recruit the best," Dr. Skaggs said. "It's hard to retain the best, and the way we do it is by recruiting people who are mission driven. The spine surgeons who are successful here aren't going after the dollar, they're going after the unrelenting pursuit of excellence in clinical care, research and education. You know, people who are mission driven to make spine care better, to train better surgeons, they're happier."
Dr. Tuchman said Cedars-Sinai's spine program also stands out for its workplace culture.
"A large part of it is that this is a really kind of enjoyable setting to work," Dr. Tuchman said. "In terms of patient support and resources and the ability to be supported by the administration here really helps, I think, keep the camaraderie up and makes people very happy in their job skills. I think what we find here is there's an extensive amount of collaboration, especially between neurosurgery and orthopedics, which is honestly unique to many kinds of how spine surgery is done around the country."
Part of that collaboration and support is done among faculty spine surgeons who share their preoperative and postoperative cases to their colleagues, Dr. Skaggs said.
"You come in at 6:30 in the morning, and it's just due to dedication to the mission," Dr. Skaggs said. "From a patient's perspective, you're getting four or five free opinions without even knowing about it. So every single surgery [they] are doing, [they're] presenting the pre and post op planning results to the seniors and spine faculty."
The benefit of those surgical briefings include seeing new perspectives on familiar cases and even led to instances where physicians will help each other during procedures, the surgeons said.
"I think it's very valuable to see, even as somebody who's been in practice for a long time," Dr. Tuchman said. "My practice is very focused on open deformity, and seeing pre and post op results from people who are focused on different aspects highlights and improves my ability to take care of my own patients sometimes by seeing different perspectives to treat my own patients."
"I've even seen surgeons say, 'Hey, you know what? That idea is better. Maybe you could do it that way,' and then the case will be done in combination with another surgeon who has special expertise," Dr. Skaggs said. "We're not really incentivized on RVUs or clinical productivity so we don't hesitate to operate together and make sure that the patient has the surgeon in the room who's the most expert at what the patient needs."