The first step in finding out if Hip Resurfacing is right for you or whether or not you qualify for resurfacing, is selecting the right surgeon.

Selecting the right surgeon is crucial to getting long term positive results.  It is a personal decision but one that must be taken very seriously.  Basically, if you choose the wrong surgeon and the surgery does not go as planned, you can not get a “do over” without risking a revision surgery to a THR, which in turn means another major surgery.

The most important factor in choosing a surgeon is his/her experience and skill level. There are many questions you should ask your doctor. Also remember that if the first doctor you see tells you that you are not a candidate for resurfacing, do not take their word as the end all, be all. There are many top surgeons that can take on difficult cases that other newer doctors will not touch. I am not saying to “shop around” for a doctor by just going to any doctor, I am saying that if one tells you that you are not a candidate, do not stop there. Get your x-rays into a digital format or jpeg and email them ONLY to some of the world’s top resurfacing surgeons to find out if they believe you are a candidate. And this does not mean just any doctor that claims he does resurfacing, but surgeons that have done a minimal of 500 hip resurfacings if you want to get a true unbiased opinion.  (Did you know that most top Hip Resurfacing surgeons have done more THR's than Resurfacings, since THR's have been around longer, so they are really the ones that truly have the experience to speak to you from an unbiased perspective)  I know many patients, (myself included) that were told we were not candidates for resurfacing by other orthopedic surgeons only to end up getting successful resurfacings with the right doctor.

Scientific Studies vs. Real Life Experiences: Why I Recommend The Doctors I Do
By: Vicky Marlow
LBHR Dr. Bose Dec 01 05

Doctors have a vast array of scientific studies that they can reference to their advantage even though they may not match their own personal outcomes. When I heard Mr. Treacy speak at a conference I attended, his opening statement was a joke about how the one thing he has learned from studies is that you can really make them turn out pretty much any way you want them to. The response was a thunderous laugh from the huge audience of orthopedic surgeons.

All we have as patients, ones that are here to actually and genuinely help other patients, are the thousands of posts we read from real life people and the countless phone calls and emails received and replied to OFFLINE, again, helping and working with REAL LIFE people. Many of the veterans have taken their posts offline due to certain personalities that come on Surface Hippy (SH) that seem to get a kick out of stirring things up and causing confrontations.