Managing patient care takes surgical skills that extend beyond the operating room. Orthopedic surgeon at Chicago’s Midwest Orthopedics at Rush and team physician for the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox Brian Cole, MD, shared his thoughts on a surgeon’s intuition on DocThoughts with Nirmal Gosalia.
A majority of cases Dr. Cole sees never make it to the operating table because there are more viable nonsurgical options for treatment for their condition.
“As an orthopedic surgeon the majority of things we do are nonsurgical,” Dr. Cole said. “You have to say ‘Look are their nonsurgical options?’… As a sports medicine specialist most of our decision making is based on [whether] a patient need treatment, and if they need treatment, is there a nonsurgical option? If there isn’t, surgical intervention can be very gratifying.”