New Shoulder Surgery Option: Fewer Complications, Faster Recovery

Once Jerry Tobin could no longer enjoy his hobbies because of pain in his shoulders, he went to his primary care physician for help and received physical therapy to ease the pain.

Over time, the pain became so severe that he could barely raise his arms to put on a jacket. That’s when he turned to orthopedic surgeon, John Uribe, M.D, chief medical executive at Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute. After performing x-rays and tests on Mr. Tobin, Dr. Uribe concluded that he had advanced osteoarthritis in both shoulders and surgery was the best course of treatment.

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[Transcript]
[Baptist Health]

[Jerry Tobin, Patient]
Initially, this developed to be a problem when I sought primary care about the soreness in my shoulder.
[Footage of Jerry getting assistance from a Doctor]
In follow up, as it got worse, and progressively over a number of years, it got more painful, it restricted more and more of the things I was used to doing.

[John Uribe, M.D. Chief Medical Executive]
Well, Mr Tobin came to our clinic, came to see me with the chief complaint of pain in his right shoulder, actually pain in both shoulders, but much worse in the right shoulder.
[X-Rays of Jerry Tobin's shoulder is shown]
The x-rays and the examination that we did showed that he had advanced osteoarthritis or just a degeneration of both joints, much worse on the right.

[Jerry Tobin]
We did the right shoulder first and it went quite well. I had been through physical therapy, and at this point, the therapist said I was fully functional; and therefore, we could proceed and move on to the second one, which was the longterm plan anyway.

[Dr. Uribe]
The surgery that he had was essentially a procedure in which we remove all the spurs, grind the ball down and get it back to its shape, and then put its anatomic surface on. So, you haven't changed anything, except for the fact that now you have a resurfaced head.
And on the socket side, instead of putting it on top where it can loosen, which is the most common complication of the standard, is you inlay it into the bone, and then you preserve that anatomy, and obviously, it's much less invasive. You're not cutting the bone so you're losing more blood and less opportunities for complications to occur.

[Jerry Tobin]
My eventual goal, and what I look forward to, following the second surgery, will be, again, fully functional in both shoulders so that I can get back to the things I want to do and enjoy doing.

[Dr. Uribe]
Being a surgeon is a tremendous privilege, because for somebody to ask you to operate on them is the greatest privilege and compliment you could have. And then, when they do well and their back to their activities, it's an extremely rewarding sensation for me to know that you can give people back their life.

[Baptist Health Logo]
[End Transcript]