“Orthopedic surgeon or neurosurgeon for a spine problem?”
I think I need to have surgery on my spine for spondylolisthesis, which I was diagnosed with a few months ago. My orthopedist wanted to treat it with rest and medication, but it's not really working for me. I still have severe back pain and my leg is also a little numb, at times. If I do need surgery, who would be performing it? An orthopedic surgeon or neurosurgeon?
4 Answers
I think Ortho is better
Spine specialists can be from an orthopedic or neurosurgery training program.
It doesn't matter. All neurosurgeons are trained to work on the spine. Only orthopedic surgeons that did a spine fellowship after residency are qualified to work on the spine. As long as it is a fully trained, board certified spine surgeon, it doesn't matte whether they trained as an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon. It is much more important to find someone that is fully trained and comfortable doing every minimally invasive and open procedure on the spine to make sure you don't end up having a much more invasive surgery than you need with a much loner recovery period than necessary.
The most important thing is the quality and track record of the surgeon, whether Neurosurgeon or Orthopedic surgeon. I have a bias toward Neurosurgery in that that is my training. The other thing that Neurosurgeons do other than spine is brain surgery. The other things that orthopedic doctors do is joint surgery, broken bones etc. So neurosurgeons in general have a more delicate and careful touch in the operating room.
