I read with interest the article in last weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald concerning Ian Harris’s recent book.
In the interests of full disclosure, Ian is an orthopaedic surgeon from whom we commonly seek advice, as an independent expert to review and comment on orthopaedic cases we are investigating. He strikes me as a sensible and “down-to-earth” expert.
I was intrigued at the list of operations which apparently his book confirms are commonly performed but objectively of questionable benefit. In the orthopaedic/spinal area, 3 of these particularly resonated, being spinal fusion operations, arthroscopies and epidural steroid injections.
Each of these are procedures we are regularly instructed to investigate. We presently handle a series of cases in which catastrophic outcomes have followed these initiatives.
I was particularly interested to read the sevenfold variation in the rate of knee arthroscopy surgery between different regions across Australia, which speaks volumes as to diverging views as to its usefulness.
We have handled 2 or 3 cases in the last couple of years in which patients have developed serious infection following such primarily investigative procedure, despite the fact it is I think fairly understood to be relatively low risk. One such case, which is not yet resolved, involves damages > $1M.
I was also interested to read in relation to epidural steroid injections, which are commonly performed upon patients complaining of back or leg pain, that the published literature shows no better relief from such steroid injections than a placebo saline injection. We are presently investigating one case in which a patient (our client) suffered profound permanent neurological injury from such an injection.
All credit to Prof Harris for his refreshingly questioning of professional practices in this area.
Quite apart from the unjustified drain upon the public purse, my observation would be that such questionable interventions are especially hard to justify when the outcome can be as catastrophic as we have seen, even if this is a small minority.