I am having some difficulty locating and deciding on a surgeon in the Boston area.  I have only found two.  Dr. Snyder of Newton Wellesley Hospital and Dr. Dennis Burke of Mass General Hospital.  Dr. Burke has an excellent reputation but is only listed as someone who has been trained in BHS procedure with now stats on number of resurfacings performed.  Neither he or his staff will give out any stats as a matter of policy.   Dr. Snyder lists about 90 procedures unless you have more current stats for him.  One would think that the New England Baptist Hospital would have some surgeons who perform hip resurfacing since they specialize in orthopedics, but apparantly this is not the case.  Thanks in advance to anyone who has any info regarding this.

Hi Frank

I personally want to choose a doctor with a lot of experience. Hip resurfacing is much more complicated than a THR.  I would not want to use a doctor that would not share his statistics with you.  If he or his staff are not open with you, I would just choose someone else.

That is the nice part about the doctors overseas. There are national registries where you can look up a doctors record.  Most of the overseas doctors often put their statistics up on their websites. Both the good and the bad as far as how many hip resurfacing they have done and how many revisions have been required.

If you don't like Dr. Snyder, why don't you consider some of the more experienced doctors a little farther from you.  Many of us have traveled to Belgium and India for hip resurfacing, so maybe you might want to at least consider somewhere closer in the US.  Dr. Gross in SC, Dr. Mont in MD , Dr. Su  NY are all very experienced.


A doctor with a good reputation for THR is not necessarily a good doctor for a BHR.  It takes a lot of experience to learn.  I have studies on my website showing doctors need 50 - 100 hip resurfacings just to be experienced. 

I would meet with Dr. Synder and see how you like him.  Maybe he has done more than the 95 I have listed.  I only get input from other hippies or when doctors write to me.

Again, I would not work with a doctor not willing to share info with you.  That is your right to know how experienced the doctor is.  Some of the new doctors doing BHR are not even doing hands on training now.  They are doing training by Video from overseas.  I personally want a surgeon that has done BHR's, not just watched them or read about them.

My doctor, Dr. De Smet who has done over 2400 hip resurfacings, tells people to choose a doctor that has done at least 100 hip resurfacings.

Please keep in touch. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

Pat

Thanks for the info Pat.  It would not be practical for me to travel too far from home (southern NH) for the hip resurfacing operation.  So I will contact Dr. Snyder or possibly Dr. Su.  New York is probably the furthest I could go (about 4 hrs by car or bus).  Have you heard anything about Dr. Snyder?  Or, if you know of any other surgeons in my area (from Boston to NYC) I would like info on them.  Thanks for your dedication.

Frank Stewart

Hi Frank

I have a suggestion for you - my website is named after the very large Yahoo Surface Hippy Discussion Group  http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/surfacehippy/  In fact, my website was going to originally be an index for all the information from the posted emails.

There are over 6000 memebers of the group and many of them have been using the newer doctors.  You might want to join the group and ask the same questions you are asking of my smaller group.  Be prepared to receive over 100 emails a day if you choose to join and receive the emails.  I have a folder set up on my computer where all those emails are posted.  You can also receive a condensed version once a day or just go up on the Yahoo website to read the posts. 

My group is new and still very small.  A group of us have already had our hip resurfacings, but up on the Yahoo Group there are thousands that have had hip resurfacing.

I am sorry that I don't know much about the newer doctors. The only way I learn about them is reading on the Yahoo Group or having someone write to me about their experience.

Dr. Su is a very popular surgeon with many of the surface hippies. You can read stories from people that used him if you scroll about 2/3 of the way down this page  http://www.surfacehippy.info/hipstories.php

Good luck and let us know if we can help you with any other information.

Pat
3/15/06 LBHR De Smet

I had BHR surgery back in 2007 (not 2003 like I stated in another post) with Dr. Snyder.  He broke my trocanter in his procedure in order to save muscle mass.  In the end, I feel it hasn't been a great success, I have less pain, but I can't do the things I had hoped to do.

Dr. Snyder would be the only one I would go to in Boston. I beleieve he has done a few hundred by now (I personally know of 3 successful cases). Dr Burke is unethical, in my experience, in that he intentionally misinformed me about hip resurfacing when I saw him in 2007. I had the same experience with Dr. Bierbaum at New England Baptist. They are all traditional THR and don't want to encourage resurfacing. In 2008, when I had did mine, I travelled to Dr Mont in Baltimore. He is a master in resurfacing and I have been very happy since. The travel to Baltimore was not all that difficult. Dr Mont would be my first choice if you can travel. If travel is absolutely out of the question, I would go to Dr Snyder.