BC 23: David De La Harpe (Orthopaedic Surgeon) – When is back surgery the right option?

David’s BIOG:

David de la Harpe
BappSc BSc MBBS MS FRACS
David is the only Orthopaedic Surgeon in Australia who is also a qualified Chiropractor. He graduated with honours in Obstetrics, Psychiatry and Paediatrics from the University of Melbourne Medical School. He was awarded the Stirling Prize for Clinical Surgery in his final year. His intern training was based at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and registrar training at Royal Melbourne, Royal Children’s Austin, Box Hill, Ballarat, Dandenong, Alfred and Geelong Hospitals. He qualified for Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1999.In 1999 he undertook a Spinal Fellowship at Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham England.David specializes in spinal surgery including keyhole microdiscectomy. He currently operates at Epworth Hospital, Richmond.

1. What is the typical day to day running as a surgeon? How much time are you consulting and how much time are you in surgery?

2. What are the red flags for the health practitioner to refer to a spinal surgeon. On the contrary, what are the indicators when NOT to perform surgery?

3. What is a reasonable timeframe that conservative care be explored before a surgical opinion?

4. A delay in the surgery depends on what key aspect with a patient?

5. What are common surgical procedures – Discectomy Vs Disc replacement?

6. What is a disc, facet joint and spondylolisthesis? When is disc fusion performed?

7. What are the indicators of facet joint blocks?

8. What and when is manipulation under anesthetic performed?

9. What’s the difference between the spinal and surgeon and neurosurgeon?

NB We apologise about the echo on Paul’s voice. The best was done to edit this but no more could be done. We have made a decision to still release the podcast because the content is otherwise very valuable to our BACKchat listeners.

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