Dr. Prittchet

[Tin Soldier]

Pritchett was at 2600 in Feb, 2011.  At about 6 per week or so, I estimated he'd be at about 2800 or so about now.  He doesn't seem to be too interested in his numbers, though.  He's a little quiet, but once you start talking about the FDA or a particular device, or details of metallosis or most other technical details about HR, he gets into it.  I saw him last week for my 8-weeker, he almost left the room without me asking questions.  We got into a healthy Q/A about various issues, from femoral neck thinning, ASR problems, a proposed joint registry in the US, and we even talked about Barry (NY Times Journalist).  I didn't drive 5 hours and pay $400 for just an x-ray (insurance is paying for that).  Being a bit of an HR vet, I didn't feel the need to ask questions specific to my recovery, so I prefered to talk about the latest study or latest topic of interest in the HR community. 

BTW - I know I'm a Pritchett groupie, but I do want to emphasize that he is extremely experienced, well-authored, and does keep current with HR.   

[Luanna]

Hi Tin,
I'm going to get his stats on Wed. when I go in for my 8 week check up. We are going to see if he will respond to a request for his views on the Gantz approach but if he isn't passionate about it - he may not have a lot to say.

Yep, Pritchett groupie here too. I think we all love our surgeon especially when things go well. He loves to talk research and about his studies and ideas for future improvements for HR. Otherwise he is very quiet and can almost seem aloof. He's been doing this for so long - he's seen it all.
Luanna

[newdog]

Tin,
I feel the same way about the questions I will be asking at my next visit. I have a few about myself but I want to discuss HR with my doc and see what he has to say. Yeah, I don't want to travel a far distance and only see him and an x-ray for about 5 or 10 minutes then leave. Those are impressive numbers for Dr. Pritchett.

[Luanna]

Here are the stats as of 10/25/2011 per Susan, his patient-care coordinator plus.

"Luann –
 
Dr. Pritchett & I are familiar with the Surface Hippy website and I understand it has provided a lot of information for many patients.  I would estimate that 2700 would be an accurate approximation for the number of resurfacings Dr. Pritchett has done to date. His weekly surgery schedule isn’t 100% hip resurfacings.   In addition to the resurfacing procedure, Dr. Pritchett also performs total hip replacements, total knee replacements and shoulder surgeries.....
 
Sincerely,
Susan"

[Tin Soldier]

I was close. 

[Baby Barista]

You'd think after more than 2700 procedures, we could get a few more people to chime in here 

I'm scheduled with Dr. Pritchett in the New Year. I would love to hear more stories, thoughts and/or opinions on people's experience with him.

If you're not comfortable posting here... please email me at the address below.

Thanks everyone!

[ScubaDuck]

BB-

There is not really a question to respond to so I was just lurking.

Like Tin, I am a very satisfied Pritchett groupie.  He is quiet but confident.  He appears to be exactly the type of man that would write the medical study articles he has written.  I have nothing but good things to say about Dr. Pritchett and the staff at Swedish Hospital Orthopedic.

Best wishes.  Send me an e-mail if you wish.  Also check out my blog that is in my signature line.

Dan

[JimK]

A Dr Pritchett patient (not quite ready to be  identified as a groupie).  I am 58 years young and am 3+ years with my BHR.  I hike and backpack (started that 8 months post op) and can honestly say that I never even think about the hip, never any pain, tightness, etc.  Pritchett certainly deserves to mentioned with the best hip replacement surgeons in the world.

[cwg]

Okay, so I will have another opinion, and have chosen Dr Pritchett based on his proximity to Vancouver. AND your experiences written here.

This will be mid December once a second round of blood results come back, and the ultrasound, which has been delayed until November 30

My cup placement is at 40, which I'm told is perfect.
And if there is no fluid around the joint (ultrasound) then its just the very high levels that are a concern. And a warning ?

Am trying to remain patient.

[Luanna]

Hi cwg,
Good to get his opinion. Be sure you ask lots of questions and get him talking. He firmly believes that cup placement is only one issue and that other factors are as or more important. Be sure you ask him to share his views with you on this. I think you will be quite surprised and relieved to hear his thinking on it. I don't think that it is a controversial issue but I'd rather not push ideas that are not in sync with this site's philosophy and point of view. So - be sure and ask him about it.

There is a big conference coming up in Feb. and I believe there will be new data and a lot of debate about it. Some of the surgeons who have proposed the cup placement theory as the primary cause of metalosis may be backing off of that stance a bit. We'll see.

One of my friends with a recalled ASR device will be consulting with him in Dec as well. Her original surgeon is in Colorado and she is living here now. He said that unless she is having problems he would leave it be but he is very happy to work with her and do his best for her. Her cup placement is also excellent. But she is having high metal ion count but feels great.

Best to you.
Luanna

[mccabe66]

For the benefit of Baby Barista,

I am one of the 2700 who got a resurfacing from Dr. Pritchett.  Mine was back in July 2008, which may not have been his best year.  At least 4 of his patients that year, including me, wound up with acetabuar cups with angles greater than 55 degrees (mine was 65 degrees). More information about these cases, and at least one other Pritchett patient, are buried in the long list of posts to this website. My details were described in a post in May 2010 under the group entitled "Has anyone had acetabular cup reset to fix the angle?".   All except me ended up with quite high metal levels in the blood. Two of them had revisions to THR, and one was revised by Pritchett to a BHR. Since my metal levels are less than 7 micrograms per liter so far (10 or more seems to the level of action), and I can still do quite a bit without major pain, I have been dragging my feet on the revision that is probably inevitable. I want to be able to run more than the steps and the occasional 1 or 2 miles I have to limit mysef to at present.   I like Dr Pritchett, who emails me from time to time to check on my status.  My non-professional opinion is that the reason for his steep angle cup situations is the fact that in 2008 he did not perform inter-operative x-rays to confirm an appropriate angle had been achieved before closing.  He assured me that precaution is now being done. I will probably have him do my revision because he also appears to be far ahead of most resurfacing surgeons in experience with BHR revisions.   
Best of luck.

Mccabe66

[Luanna]

Hi mccabe66,
Good information. I know that there is at least one other person using this site, Barbara, who has had an experience that would be worth mentioning here. If I recall, after her bilateral HRs with Dr. Pritchett her bone would not grow and adhere to the acetabular cup implant and I believe that she is in the process of having Dr. Pritchett revise to THRs. I think she said that he put in titanium and her bone is taking to it nicely. Barbara, if you read this please correct me if I've got it wrong.

cwg, my friend's metal level is in the 8 range right now 2 years post surgery.

Luanna

[stevel]

Hi Mccabe66,

Another steep cup angle installed by Dr. Pritchett in May 2008 was for Jim Turk aka Jim Tork.
You have to read his story on Vicky's website for more details about the revision about a year ago.
I stumbled across his story by monitoring the two surface hippy websites and hearing anecdotal reports from other Alaska racquetball players, since Jim is an Anchorage racquetball player who resided in Juneau many years ago when I met him at the local racquetball club.

[maxx6789]

What is Vicky's website- Thanks

http://www.hipresurfacingsite.com/

[Tin Soldier]

Stevel - I was going to mention that story on Vicky's site.  That certainly gave me a little concern as well as your comment about continuing through Seattle on your way to NY, when I was searching out surgeons.   Interesting discussion. 

Maccabe - Interesting detail about the inter-op x-rays.  So what happened before 2008?  Pritchett has being doing HR for more than 4 years. Was inter-op x-rays generally not done by all surgeons until then, or was he a late in utilizing inter-op x-rays, if so would we expect to see problems from 2007 or earlier?

cwg - I was a believer in the steep angle issue before I chatted with Pritchett, but I am also a believer in his perspective.  He's a no nonsense scientist and I find it hard to not have faith in his opinion on the whole thing.  On the other hand, common sense seems to suggest that the best angle for good distribution of weight and connection of surfaces, would not be a steep cup angle.  Some of the discussion about edge-loading coupled with some of the x-rays of a steep cup really seems to support the idea of higher wear.   Anyway, I think you'll get a lot from him.  Like Luanna says, ask lots of questions. 

[stevel]

Also check out Keith Brewster's surface hippy website on Yahoo for posts about Dr. Pritchett.
Posts on this website extend back to 2000, when the website was started.

[mccabe66]

Tin Soldier & others,

I first heard about the inter-operative xray from Dr Snyder in Boston, whom I visited in early 2010 for a second opinion on my steep cup situation.  He said Mass General and Newton Wellesly hospitals will not let you do a BHR without it. The earliest I can find mention of use of the inter-operative xray was from Dr. Gross, who said he had been using it since 2007.  Dr. Schmalzreid mentioned its use in 2010.  I don't think Dr. Pritchett was particularly late in picking up that approach, because it seems most surgeons were not using it before about 2009 or 2010.  Dr. Pritchett probably felt he did not need it because of his experience.  I am sure he would admit that during his years of doing BHRs he produced a number of steep cups, - - he said he was never sure about the angle until the xrays after the operation.  Today it would be very short-sighted not to use an xray during the operation to check that extremely important angle.   
Thanks for the mention of Jim Tork, - - I considered him as one the steep angled cases from Pritchett in 2008.
An upcoming decision for me is whether to go back to metal-on-metal, or switch to polyethylene.
I read with envy the post by JimK who said he doesn't even think about his Pritchett  BHR because it feels so natural. In contrast, my hip reminds me every day that something is not quite right. If you are getting a BHR, make sure your surgeon takes all available precautions to avoid a steep cup angle.

Cheers
Mccabe 66

[stevel]

I must have dodged a bullet by bypassing Seattle and going to New York for surgery by Dr. Su in Sept 2008.
I have never heard of any steep cups installed by Dr. Su, even before it became common knowledge to hip resurfacing Drs.
I used frequent flyer mileage to travel anywhere Alaska Airlines flies, so I flew to the Newark, NJ airport for surgery at the HSS, which was rated no. 1 for orthopedics in 2007, 2008 & 2010 by US News and World report.  And this includes diagnostics, nursing, aftercare, infection, casualties, etc.

[Baby Barista]

Good to see a robust discussion going on about Dr. Pritchett and his protocols now. However, I think it is unfair to characterize bypassing him as, "dodging a bullet".

I have spent the better part of six months reading all of the hip resurfacing sites front to back. Look long enough and you'll find horror stories about *every* HR surgeon. I've also reviewed state medical board records from New York to Washington, and again, if you look long enough -- you'll find trouble.

I think in general, these findings speak less about the doctors and more about the complexity of the procedure. And if we're being completely honest here -- we won't know who *really* are the best surgeons until 15 or 20 years from now.

[Luanna]

Hi Baby Barista,
I agree that having honest discussions is great. I'm totally thrilled with Dr. Pritchett and especially like how honest he is about problems that crop up from time to time. He doesn't try to hide them or minimize them. His main focus is on his patients and doing the best he can for them. If you ask him a difficult question he will answer it fully. He is not concerned with fascades or marketing, and when his opinion differs from other top surgeons he sticks to his guns rather than agreeing just to get along. He doesn't care to be popular if it means compromising his integrity. He is very skilled, continues to learn, is honest, and has great integrity.

He told me that when a patient has a problem (and it happens with every surgeon from time to time) he loses sleep over it. He is very diligent about following up with his patients and tracking outcomes over time. His research is impeccable as well. I admire him greatly.

Bottom line - his failure rate is extremely low.

Luanna