Shay Bess, M.D. New Chief of Adult Deformity at NYU
Shay Bess, M.D., president of the International Spine Study Group Foundation (ISSG), is the new chief of the Adult Spinal Deformity Service for the Division of Spine Surgery in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Hospital for Joint Diseases. Dr. Bess is also serving as Director of Spinal Deformity Research at that facility.
Dr. Bess, who was also named associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at NYU School of Medicine, told OTW, “Tom Errico and Frank Schwab and Virginie Lafage have done a phenomenal job of creating a high quality clinical and research program that stands out in the crowd. Over the next year our goal is to continue that work by reevaluating why exactly patients report their respective reasons for pain and disability and to begin to identify what individuals want most out of the treatment they receive. More specifically we hope to be able to identify and integrate the patient’s individual goals. To date, we just have a general sense of how people are faring, but we must focus more on the individual needs of the patient.”
“In order to be able to personalize our evaluations and treatment plans we need to create assessment tools that evaluate both the objective and subjective aspects of the patient. So then rather than just using a standardized questionnaire that administers the same static, fixed questions to every patient, (i.e., each person answers a series of questions and each question has a set number of possible responses) a more effective method to evaluate patients might be to use an interactive algorithm of questions that highlight the individual’s experience and needs. In this manner we will be able to more effectively ‘tease out what matters most to patients’. So then in a standardized manner we, for example, can differentiate between one patient whose goal is to run a marathon, compared to another patient whose goal is to walk in the shopping mall pain free.”
Dr. Bess comes to NYU from Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children/Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, where he served as Director of the Pediatric Scoliosis Services. He stated, “We also hope to learn and integrate computerized testing that will allow us to look at algorithms and see how patients are responding to treatment and reporting pain. Administratively, this will save time for patients by reducing questionnaire burden, and for research purposes it will result in a questionnaire that generates richer data. Because these adaptive questionnaires can be used as both disease specific and general health metrics we can then use similar data to evaluate outcomes for spine patients, and to also compare to spine patients to patients other pathologies such as osteoarthritis of the hip or the knee. In doing so we can then determine the disease impact of each condition and evaluate how patients respond to treatment, and what is the most cost effective and psychologically helpful treatment. So far, no one else is doing this for spine deformity.”
“Fortunately, the ISSG has done a substantial amount of early ‘groundwork’ in this area. Therefore going forward we hope to be able to utilize the data we obtain and integrate with the intelligence of our talented ISSG members to move this process forward in a thoughtful, thorough and impactful manner.”
Dr. Bess attended Columbia University, earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and completed his residency at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Bess did a postdoctoral spine fellowship in pediatric and adult scoliosis and spinal deformity at Washington University in St. Louis.
Timothy Gajewski, M.D. Joins OrthoAtlanta
Dr. Timothy Gajewski, a fellowship trained total joint surgeon who received his training at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has joined the team at OrthoAtlanta. Dr. Gajewski is certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Dr. Gajewski specializes in reconstructive surgery of the hip and knee, with a special interest in partial knee replacement. Prior to joining OrthoAtlanta, Dr. Gajewski, who has 25 years of orthopedic experience, was at the Cleveland Clinic. As a member of OrthoAtlanta, Dr. Gajewski sees patients in Lawrenceville and Johns Creek. He is on staff at Gwinnett Medical Center.
Dr. Gajewski told OTW, “My initial focus since joining OrthoAtlanta has been getting into the community to meet with area physicians, businesses and residents to let them know that I am available to serve them. My priority is to establish trust with each and every patient that I see.”
Orchid Orthopedic Acquires Implant Coating Company—Alhenia
Alhenia, a European company that supplies coatings to implant manufacturers, has just been acquired by Orchid Orthopedic. Alhenia, based in Switzerland, has experience with coatings on peek and polyethylene, ceramic coatings, cold spray coatings, titanium on metal and ceramic substrates and anti bacterial coatings. For many years Alhenia has machined implants and instruments along with a wide variety of finishing capabilities to complete the entire value stream for orthopedic components.
Mike Miller, CEO of Orchid, told OTW, “Adding Alhenia supports our long-term strategy to have full value stream services on three continents: North America, Europe and Asia. We are continuing to look at businesses that will support this strategy and be a good fit to our Orchid culture. The timing is something that cannot always be controlled but when the right opportunity comes it makes sense to execute.”
“We are hoping to be able to integrate Alhenia within the Orchid family over the next year. We will know we are successful if Alhenia continues to grow as they have been and we have more full-value stream projects that tie together our multiple sites that include Alhenia.”
