"At any one time, we're doing 30 to 40 hip replacements in a week." Doctor Thomas P. Sculco, Surgeon-in-Chief at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, explains how important it is to select a hospital with good experience in hip replacement surgery.

Dr. Sculco



At any one time, we're doing 30 to 40 hip replacements in a week.



You want to go to hospital that has high volumes of this operation. You go to a hospital with 20-25 hip replacements a year. And are doing gall bladder and colon operations and all kinds of different procedures. The focus is not going to be as intense on the patient and their recovery after hip replacement surgery. Now hospital for special surgery is a unique hospital. We are essentially an orthopedic rheumatology hospital so at this institution we will do anywhere between five and six thousand joint replacements a year. So at any one time, we're doing 30 to 40 hip replacements in a week. So the hospital is focused towards the care of these patients. Physical therapy is focused, nursing is focused, the anesthesia is focused, the whole surgical team is focused. So you get a very different recovery in the setting such as we can offer here.