Hoag is ‘hip’ to orthopedics

Andrew Glazer

Dr. James T. Caillouette fixes hips.

And in Orange County, a place teeming with weekend golfers and country

club tennis players, hip replacements are a hot commodity.

At Hoag Hospital’s Orthopedic Services center, Caillouette and colleagues

Steven Gausewitz and Mark Newman -- wearing “spacesuits” and using

state-of-the-art sonic saws -- have replaced nearly 700 hips and knees in

the past year.

“Practice makes perfect,” said Caillouette, whose own thick and nimble

fingers last year inserted more than 250 titanium and ceramic joints

where bones had deteriorated.

A portion of funds Hoag Hospital raises at the Toshiba Senior Classic

golf tournament this week -- which hospital officials say may amount to

as much as $1 million -- will go toward expanding the services, staff and

equipment of its orthopedics program, said Ann Stawicki, a hospital

marketing director.

Also benefiting from the tournament proceeds are Hoag’s Women’s Health

Services, the Hoag Cancer Center and the Hoag Heart Institute.

Caillouette said some money will go toward expanding a program that

requires patients to learn about the joint-replacement procedure before

their surgeries. The program entails nurses informing patients about what

they should eat and what kinds of exercises they should do in preparation

for their new prosthetic joints.

“A prepared patient is a better patient,” he said.

Nurses from the program known as Critical Pathways then follow the

patients through physical therapy.

Caillouette said the program benefits everyone.

“Bo Jackson could’ve used this,” said Caillouette, referring to the

retired professional football and baseball player, hobbled because he

returned to baseball before letting his hip heal after hip replacement

surgery. “It was poor education.”

“It works,” said Bob Gilbert, 55, a Laguna Beach stockbroker who had both

hips replaced last year. “They walk you through what’s going to happen,

from the day you check into surgery to the day you go home.”

Did the education program put Gilbert at ease before his surgery?

“I wasn’t too nervous going in,” he said. “But who really wants their leg

sawed apart?”

Money from the Toshiba tournament will also help to ensure the

department’s equipment remains on the cutting edge.

“We want to be using the 2000 model, not the 1980 model,” Caillouette

said. Next month, the surgeon will attend a conference in Orlando, Fla.,

where more than 30,000 orthopedic surgeons and bioengineers from around

the world will show off the latest technology.

A portion of the money will also go toward joint-replacement research.

Caillouette, Gausewitz and Newman have led the field in developing

lighter, longer-lasting and healthier prosthetic hips.

Until fairly recently, hip replacements lasted only about 10 years.

Caillouette, Newman and Gausewitz helped extend the prosthetic joint’s

life to 15 years.

But Caillouette said he’s still not satisfied.

“We’d like to tell a 50-year-old that his hip replacement will last

forever,” he said.