Rachel Bratescu, MD, a spine surgeon at Washington, D.C.-based George Washington University Hospital, envisions an upgraded spine program with more offerings and collaborations in the year ahead.
Dr. Bratescu discussed what she has planned for the spine program on an upcoming episode of the “Becker’s Spine and Orthopedic Podcast.”
Note: This is an edited excerpt.
Question: What are some of your top goals in your work this year?
Dr. Rachel Bratescu: My No. 1 goal is incorporating endoscopy into my practice. In the shoulder, the knee and the hip, for example, it’s the idea of doing the work that you need to do as a surgeon through one portal while viewing and seeing what you’re doing in another portal. What’s really exciting is that this technique can also be translated to spine surgery. This was a technique I trained in during one of my fellowships in my orthopedic spine fellowship at New York City-based NYU. I was trained in bi-portal endoscopy. What makes this unique is that it is essentially doing ultra minimally invasive spine surgery.
This is incredibly important when we are looking to offer patients less invasive forms of surgery that can get them out of surgery with less pain in the acute post operative period, and get them back to the things that they love to do, whether that’s working, whether that’s spending time with your family, or any other recreational activities that patients want to get back into, whether that’s sports or just staying active throughout your life. This is a really amazing technique in particular for spinal surgeries such as decompressions and microdiscectomies. But it’s also being utilized as well in some fusion surgeries. I’m currently in the process of having this approved at our hospital.
Another area I’m really excited about is creating a Comprehensive Spine Center at George Washington. What that means is merging both the orthopedic and neurosurgery spine departments. I am fortunate that I have a great relationship with the neurosurgeons here, and this is really the future of spine surgery, especially at many large academic centers in the U.S. and around the world that employ this model. You have orthopedic and neurosurgeons who are spine surgeons, collaborating and working together instead of being two separate departments.
The department of spine surgery and a Comprehensive Spine Center isn’t just about the surgeons. It’s also about everything else that we can offer patients whether that is pain management, injections and physical therapy. These are other departments that I work very closely with who take care of my patients, and there’s often multiple steps that happen before a patient even goes to surgery. So it really makes sense to have all of these offerings under the same roof and in the same place at the same time. This promotes better patient care, better access, streamlining of appointments and having everything in one place both figuratively and in many cases, under the same roof. [We can] share clinic space and walk down the hallway and speak to colleagues about a mutual patient or even see that same patient both on the same day … It’s just better involvement in your patient’s care and can also contribute to better patient outcomes. These things can take some time, but I’m hopeful that by the end of this year, that’s another thing that will be on our horizon from a neurosurgery and an orthopedic standpoint.
