Last spring I injured my right knee. Frankly at the time I did not think to much about it. I did a little therapy and rested it. Bout it began to get progressively worse, pain in the posterior lateral aspect of my knee. I had several very good functionally oriented therapist look at it and they all felt that my fibular head was slightly displaced. It made sense because with minimal manipulation there was relief. All of them encouraged my to go see an Orthopedic doctor. Well where I live in Sarasota Florida it is hard to find an Orthopedic doctor whose does not specialize in hip or knee replacements for geriatric is hard to find. I finally found one doctor who had a great reputation as a surgeon. That should have been my first clue. Before I ever saw him on my first visit they took x rays. Good I knew I needed that, because I had not had that done originally. The doctor came in looked at the x rays for all of 30 seconds and said there was nothing remarkable there. Ok so I expected him to do a clinical exam. He never toughed my knee! If I would not have stood to tell him where and how and hurt he would not have asked. In and out 5 minutes tops, order an MRI and I see next week to go over results. Amazing! So I go get my MRI and see the doctor again. He reads the radiologist report to me. No surgery necessary. Arthritis. Three minutes later I am out of the office. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. If coached like that I would be fired in ten minutes. Furthermore as I have been practicing what I preach and doing remedial rehab type exercises everyday it is getting better. My therapist friends were more correct than the doctor. The moral of the story is that I now have even less faith in doctors than I did before. They do not understand function. In fact the fact that are good surgeons my mitigate against them understanding function. Successful surgery does not mean a successful return to play!
