Ronald P. Grelsamer - A Patients Guide to Unnecessary Knee Surgery: How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Hasty Medical Advice

Everyone needs to read this book to avoid unnecessary surgery. Dr. Grelsamers writing style makes this an easy useful read with easily retained knowledge.

Lewis G. Maharam, MD, FACSM, aka Running Doc, past president of GNYRC American College of Sports Medicine

Dr. Grelsamers book will help patients navigate the confusing and at times conflicting advice given by doctors about knee injuries and their treatment. His advice is timely, easy to understand, and laced with humor and wit. Along the way he gives advice on how to keep your knees happy and healthy.

Elizabeth Arendt, MD

After reading this book, my first reaction was: Amen! Not the automatic prayer response, but in a true sense of affirmation and agreement. Dr. Grelsamer relies on his broad and deep experience to tell it like it is in a style and language that anyone can understand. He writes with honesty, integrity, humor, and yes, a wisdom that comes with a few gray hairs. It is rare for two orthopedic surgeons to agree in detail with one another, but this is one of those occasions. This book needed to be written, and I am happy that Dr. Grelsamer had the drive (and guts) to see it through. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who has a kneeif it doesnt hurt now, the odds are it will. It should also be required reading for all med students, primary care docs, and especially first-year orthopedic residents.

Alan Merchant, MD

Dr. Grelsamers comprehensive and authoritative book, A Patients Guide to Unnecessary Knee Surgery is a must read for anyone contemplating knee surgery. Dr. Grelsemer summarizes some of the most common problems we see with regard to misdiagnosis and unnecessary surgery and he does it in an easy to read fashion, making this topic understandable to all laypersons. Grelsemer makes this part of orthopedics approachable and allows readers to understand what was once only known to those of us in the field. Many injuries require surgery, however, many do not. It is imperative to understand which category your knee problem falls into so that patients dont make decisions from a place of pain (when most of us will do anything to get out of it).

Beth Shubin-Stein, MD

In A Patients Guide to Unnecessary Knee Surgery , Dr. Grelsamer has assembled a wealth of practical knowledge for patients who find themselves with a knee problem and dont know where to start looking for answers. In this age of the internet, there is a vast amount of unfiltered information and misinformation on the web. Most commercial websites have a commercial incentive for their information. Patients sense this bias and next turn to family and friends who have often unknowingly accepted portions of the misinformation. With the changes in medicine, the friendly local family physician is often no longer in the loop and the patient thus presents directly to a knee specialist that they often select with limited guidance from the web or insurance listing. Dr. Grelsamer points out that while the vast majority of orthopedic surgeons are well meaning and well-trained and would agree with the information is this Patients Guide , a minor number either lack knowledge for the patients specific problem or less so, may be motivated by a goal of surgical volume. Thus, caveat emptor unfortunately still applies in medicine today: the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made, per Google search in 2016. Patients Guide allows a patient to become educated to the level of asking appropriate questions of their knee surgeon and even offers non-operative options to consider in the initial stages of their journey to knee happiness. As a practicing knee subspecialist, I would enjoy consulting with patients who have read the Patients Guide . We could spend the consultation time discussing my recommendations based on the current world literatureavoiding the time necessary to educate patients about knee terminology, MRI limitations, and the fact that a vast majority of knee problems have nonsurgical solutions. This book affords patients a well-rounded discussion of treatment options, and allows them to become fully informedthe key to moving forward together with their knee doctor.

Jack Farr, MD

Dr. Grelsamer has written the comprehensive and honest guide for patients who have knee problems. His book should be a must read for all who have experienced knee problems and for anyone who plans to see a knee specialist for evaluation and treatment.

Phillip Bauman, MD

Copyright 2017 by Ronald P. Grelsamer, MD

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo credit iStockphoto

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1687-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1689-6

Printed in the United States of America

To my wife Sharon whose patience made this book possible, and to Frank Stinchfield, MD who taught me to treat each patient like a friend.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Thanks first and foremost to my wife Sharon and to my children Dominique and Marc who have put up with the time involved in putting this book together.

Thanks to my patients for proving me correct in believing that people are increasingly looking to be educated.

Thanks to Steven Arnold, MD for his help with .

Finally, thanks to my colleagues with suspect scruples without whom there would have been no need for this book.

Introduction

The wheel turns.

When this book was first published in 2002 under the title What Your Doctor May NOT Tell You About Knee Pain and Surgery, I expected to get hate mail from my colleagues; but at least the book would serve as a wake-up call to those suffering from knee pain and those paying for it.

Nothing of the kind happened.

I received a few letters from colleagues saying they wished they themselves had written the book, and doctors in other medical disciplines contacted me to point out similar issues in their own specialty.

A major television network was most interested in producing a piece based on that book; but in the end, disbelief won out. The message was watered down to a simple get a second opinion.

We are now well into the twenty-first century, and the cost and delivery of health care have moved up a few notches in our consciousness.

The time is ripe to revisit the subject.

As the sixties saying goes, If youre not part of the solution, youre part of the problem. If you dont speak up when you see something wrong, you are partly responsible for the persistence of that wrong.