As spine surgery becomes more minimally invasive, Gbolahan Okubadejo, MD, said he wants to address patient presumptions and focus on additional wellness approaches to healthcare.
Dr. Okubadejo spoke about the trends he’s following and patient misconceptions he wants to dispel during an upcoming episode of “Becker’s Spine and Orthopedic Podcast.”
Note: This is an edited excerpt.
Question: What are some common myths or misconceptions that you’re hearing from patients?
Dr. Gbolahan Okubadejo: There are two major ones. The first one is that no one gets better from spine surgery. A lot of people feel that if they get surgery, that means they’re doomed to be limited indefinitely, and that’s definitely false. The technology has evolved to a point where we’re more efficient with our techniques and our diagnostics so patients get much better, much quicker, and the outcomes have never been better. That’s definitely a myth that we’re trying to allay as strongly as possible.
The other misconception is that spine surgery is very dangerous, and actually it’s less dangerous now than it’s ever been. That comes back to technology. Our understanding of anatomy is better. The options we have when it comes to treatment are more precise, so surgery has never been safer and the outcomes have never been better. This is a great time to be a spine surgeon, and it’s a great time if you’re having back pain and if you’re in the hands of the right person to have your issues resolved.
Q: What innovations in spine have been the most exciting to you recently?
GO: I’m interested in things that are minimally invasive and things that are robotic. What I’ve enjoyed recently are new endoscopic techniques. When endoscopic techniques were first introduced we were limited in terms of the approach to the spine. But that technology has evolved to a point where we can use a more traditional approach to get into the spine while still using endoscopic techniques to get to the pathology and have excellent visualization to resolve symptoms very quickly … With robotics we can plan our procedures better. We can use advanced imaging prior to surgery, marry that to intraoperative imaging and our placement of implants has never been better. We’re able to get our screws in better when it comes to fusion cages. Also with robotics, AI is playing a role when it comes to spine surgery. So it’s a great time to be in the field.
Q: What are some healthcare trends that you’ve been following closely?
GO: The biggest trend in healthcare currently is the trend of prioritizing prevention as opposed to waiting until you have pathology and being in pain, and then we come up with solutions. So prevention looks like a form of wellness. Wellness is a huge thing now in medicine and in orthopedics. We’re studying ways to use IV vitamins to make our bodies as healthy as possible. A newly emerging field when it comes to longevity is the use of peptides, and in medicine that’s becoming bigger and bigger. That’s really the most exciting thing. We’re also diving deeper into that and trying to develop our own protocols and bring more of these treatments to our patients.
