Springfield woman ‘hip’ to new surgery offered at
St. John’s

 Two years ago, Carroll Hicks of Springfield started noticing pain in her lower back and legs. By September 2002, the pain had become so unbearable that she couldn’t do everyday things, like get in and out of her car or go to the lake with her grandchildren.

But now, just a year later, her pain is gone and she’s back to being an active grandma, thanks to a new, minimally invasive approach to hip replacement surgery.
Instead of a large, 8 to 12-inch incision required for traditional hip replacement surgery, the new approach requires only a 4-inch incision, dramatically reducing the patient’s hospital stay, pain and recovery time.
Hicks was the first St. John’s patient to receive the new minimally invasive hip replacement surgery.

“I was nervous about the surgery because I had heard how painful the recovery was, but thanks to the new approach, I had very minimal discomfort after the operation,” she says,
“and now, the only way I can tell I had the surgery is the fact that I can get around 100 times better than I did before.”

The same prosthetic hip implants used in traditional hip replacements are used with the new technique, but it involves new ways of getting into the hip through smaller and smaller incisions, while still allowing sufficient room to cut the bone and insert and place the components of the prosthetic hip.

Recovery time for total hip replacement surgery has been reduced by up to four weeks using the minimally invasive approach and is possible because the new approach requires less cutting of muscle, tendons and ligaments.

“The normal recovery time before was nearly 12 weeks,” says St. John’s orthopedic surgeon Fred McQueary, M.D. “Now because we are able to cut less muscle and tissue, the recovery time has shortened to as little as eight weeks.”

The new minimally invasive technique requires modified instrumentation. Bulky instruments have been slimmed down to fit through smaller incisions. New retractors, which are used to hold open the skin and muscle around the incision, were developed to allow surgeons to clearly see the hip through the smaller incision.

“We have been able to do partial hip replacements through a small incision for some time now,” says McQueary, “but these newly modified instruments allow us to do the complete hip replacement through the smaller incision, which is more beneficial for the patient.”

Hicks says she couldn’t have made it through the past 10 months without the support of her family, church and her faith.
“ You have no idea what life is going to deal you, and it really helps to have family there to support you,” she says.“ My husband and my children have stood by me through all of this.”
Hicks and her husband Marvin have been married for 43 years and have two grown children, David and Ronda. David is the minister of music for First Baptist Church of Ozark and is a father of two girls. Ronda works for United Parcel Service in Springfield.

Hicks highly recommends the minimally invasive approach to hip replacement surgery to others.

“I couldn’t have been happier with the results from my surgery,” she said, “if you have to have hip replacement surgery, this is, without a doubt in my mind, the best way to go.”