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Welcome everyone to the BECCA Healthcare Podcast Series.

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I'm Joya Mohammed, writer and moderator of BECCA

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Healthcare. My folks I have with me today,

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doctor Dean Bercioi, orthopedic surgeon at Summers with

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a deep seated surgery and sports medicine.

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Doctor, welcome to the podcast. We're very excited

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to have him join us today. Please let

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us start. Would you mind taking some of

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your questions about

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your background?

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Yes. Thanks for having me. As you, mentioned,

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I just started,

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my practice here in New York, Silmers Orthopedics.

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And I spent time

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in residency here in New York at Northwell

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at Hofstra,

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where I did an orthopedic

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residency and then did a fellowship at Texas

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Back Institute in Dallas, Plano. So I have

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some northeast and then some southern techniques, and

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I'm trying to incorporate that in my practice

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here in New York.

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So what are some of the biggest headwinds

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you're planning for this year?

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So this year, and what I'm trying to

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bring to my practice as it continues to

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grow now that I'm in my 2nd year,

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post fellowship

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is not only disc arthroplasty,

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but spinal endoscopy.

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And the latter, I think, is a fairly,

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you know, novel technique

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that hasn't really

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become

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a portion of most spine surgeons'

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techniques just yet.

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At least in Western culture, it is something

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that they've been doing more so in Europe

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and in Asia, especially in Korea and Japan.

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But for lumbar disc herniation specifically,

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that's

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a novel technique through an endoscope, which has

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a 7 millimeter port.

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And then these patients have much quicker

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recoveries, in addition to you as a surgeon

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being able to visualize

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at the disc level of the pathology.

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So it's a great

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technique, and it's something that I foresee myself

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further incorporating in my practice. And I'm, the

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first one at my hospital

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that's doing this and one of only a

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handful of surgeons in the region that's doing

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it.

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How will the spine and orthopedic field evolve

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in the next 2 to 3 years, do

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you think? Whether it's involving tech or the

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workforce or anything like that.

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Over the next 2 to 3 years, I'd

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say, not only are procedures going to be

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more commonly performed in an outpatient setting, such

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as an ambulatory

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care setting.

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Not only the 23 hour stay, but probably

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even shorter. And I think endoscopy

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opens up that ability to

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essentially

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be treated almost like a knee arthroscopy, where

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you get your surgery, and within an hour

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or 2, you're discharged home. And that's

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a big

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benefit of endoscopy, where you have not only

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small incisions from a minimally invasive point of

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view, but you have no dead space in

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terms of

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the dissection.

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Everything

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closes up as you take the small tube

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out. And it's even smaller than the tubular

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retractors that are 18

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to 22 millimeters that you hear in micro

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discectomy. This is truly

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minimally invasive.

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And again, having a camera down at the

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level

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of the pathology as opposed to looking at

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it from a normal standard

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surgical perspective, which is looking down onto the

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patient,

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we could really deal with

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the the problem at hand and then get

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people back to their lives and to work

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significantly quicker.

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Thank you so much for sharing that. And,

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doctor, before I let you go, the last

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thing I really wanted to ask you is,

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where do you see the best opportunities for

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growth?

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There's a lot of growth that's happening

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in not only techniques, like I was talking

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about with endoscopy,

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but in implant sciences in the form of

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arthroplasty,

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which I also do, cervical dis replacement, and

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lumbar dis replacement. These are motion preserving

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procedures, as opposed to fusions, which

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obviously limit the motion at that segment.

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And when you understand biomechanically

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the anatomical segment, the cervical or the lumbar

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spine,

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it makes sense that if you can preserve

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motion,

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you should. And we saw this sort of

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change with

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hip and knee surgeries

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earlier on.

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Obviously,

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when we didn't have the capabilities to do

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arthroplasty for those joints, we did fusions. And

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of course, now if you ask a hip

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or a knee surgeon

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to do a fusion, they look at you

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kind of crazy. Right? And your surgeon wouldn't

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offer you that. So it's the same concept

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with cervical lumbar.

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We're getting better

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knowledge of the biomechanics. And where I trained

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at Texas Back,

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we had 20 plus years

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of surgery in the form of arthroplasty.

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So I think that's a big thing. And

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then, of course, robotics.

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And I've done a lot of training with

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a number of robotic systems. And I think

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that adds

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another

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benefit

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to having more accurate

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instrumentation,

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as well as having

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another,

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you know, reliable source of

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information on that patient

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in regards to coordinating not only

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MRI and

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CT scan specifically, but maybe trying to merge

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that with MRIs and other

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visualization

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technologies that have come about, such as Augmedix

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or that mixed reality.

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Yeah. Yeah. That completely makes a lot of

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sense. Thank you so much for sharing,

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those things, and thank you for those final

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thoughts. It's definitely been very informative discussion. So,

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again, I wanna thank you so much for

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coming on Becker's HealthCare,

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and I hope you have a great time.

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I look forward to connect connecting with you

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again soon. Alright. Thank you. Thanks for having

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me.