Doctor Thomas P. Sculco, Surgeon-in-Chief at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, gives advice on how a patient should choose his or her surgeon for an operation as important as hip replacement.

Dr. Sculco There are surgeons who specialize in this operation who will do 100 to 200 to sometimes 300 hip replacements in a year. How does a patient with hip arthritis pick their surgeon or their doctor. And what questions should that patient ask the doctor before they have surgery with that doctor. Certainly the experience of the surgeon in hip replacement surgery. There is ample literature that has documented that high volume surgeons that do a lot of hip replacements, and high volume hospitals that care for a lot of patients with hip replacement surgery, the outcomes are better. So certainly the first question to the surgeon should be, "Doctor how many of these operations do you do a year? I would say that a surgeon to be experienced and comfortable with this procedure should really do at least 25 to 50 implants a year. Now there are surgeons who specialize in this operation who will do 100 to 200 to sometimes 300 hip replacements in a year. So think you want to get that information from the surgeon first hand.