Hip Replacement Recipient Suffers Foot Drop, Nerve Damage Due to Alleged Surgeon Negligence

This case involves a male patient in his early sixties who underwent a total hip replacement in order to treat severe degenerative joint disease of his right hip. The patient elected to undergo a total hip replacement after conferring with an orthopedic specialist, who recommended the procedure to treat worsening pain in the joint. However, after undergoing the procedure the patient experienced a tingling sensation in his right leg, as well as foot drop. It was alleged that the operating surgeon damaged the nerves in the patient’s right leg during the hip replacement procedure.

Question(s) For Expert Witness

1. Do you routinely treat patients who have suffered injuries following a hip replacement surgery?

Expert Witness Response E-008978

I do about 150 hip replacements a year. I routinely treat patients that have suffered complications of hip replacement, and I have had patients develop a foot drop after hip replacement. This is a rare complication that has occurred in less than 1 percent of my patients. In each case of mine that it happened, the patients had a pre-existing concomitant spine disease and a significant preoperative leg length discrepancy. My specialty is hip and knee replacement surgery. I was trained in this field by the world leaders in the field. I am on faculty at a renewed medical institution/tertiary care hospital where I routinely perform this surgery as well a revision hip replacement surgeries that are referred to me after complications have arisen where referring surgeons are not comfortable with the complexity of the case.