Editors' Note

Dr. Thomas Sculco is also the Chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and a Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. He has written more than 235 papers and 64 chapters, and has presented over 540 papers on orthopedic surgery and the surgical treatment of arthritis. He was included in New York magazine’s 2009 and 2010 list of “Best Doctors in New York.”

We are the largest musculoskeletal orthopedic hospital in the world, by far. This hospital has been engaged in orthopedic surgery for almost 147 years. So there are a lot of advances that occurred here.

The first orthopedic residency program anywhere was founded here in the 1890s. This hospital was the first to develop, to a large extent, joint replacement surgery and do it in a multidisciplinary way where engineers and surgeons worked together in the design of these devices. We look at it as a multidisciplinary approach in terms of design and development of implants.

The first modern total knee replacement was developed at HSS. We also developed many designs in hip replacements, elbow replacements, and shoulder replacements – we’ve developed implants for just about every joint in the body through our engineering and surgical department.

We also pioneered the use of regional anesthesia for joint-replacement surgery, and we developed customized operating rooms that have the lowest infection rate in the world for hip and knee replacements.

Also, this hospital was the first to use the concept of minimally-invasive surgery, particularly for hip replacement that has now become popularized throughout the world. This allows for speedy recovery and a reduction in blood loss in most of our patients.•