ABOUT US
Who are our surgeons?
Our consultants are all active senior dedicated spine surgeons (not retirees!) holding both Canadian and US or European Board certification. They all have long lists of published research activity and lecturing in the field, and belong to several internationally acclaimed academic Spine care and research societies. They travel to several major research meetings every year to present their research, attend lectures, and take courses that upgrade their skills.
They are the best of the best!
What is a spine surgeon?
Any generally qualified orthopedic or neurosurgeon today is expected by their training to be able to perform several procedures of elementary spine care. Certainly in its essence spine surgery is simple but it can get very complicated very quickly and so the surgeon doing it occasionally won’t be doing it well.
There is no legal definition of what constitutes a Spine surgeon in most countries. Professionally, a Spine Surgeon is a fully qualified neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon who has dedicated not just their entire practice to providing Spine care but their research, academic work and Continuing Education activity to nothing but. They are truly Life-Long Learners, and they have to be. Spine care learning curves are known to be long - it takes about ten years for even the most dedicated to both really understand Spine care and management of the patient, and to get good at it. And the practice is advancing all the time!
Who are our clients?
Spine Surgery Second Opinion has assisted people from around the world to understand their spine care problems and to make better informed decisions about their care, surgical or not.
​
​
What Spine Surgery Second Opinion is NOT
We are not just another website asking you to upload your MRI and giving you an “opinion” on your case based on just the scan and accompanied by a pricey quote for quick access to surgery outside the country that’s described as perfectly safe.
​
We are not looking for opportunities to operate on you. There is no private spine surgery in Canada. All we hope to offer is a clear understanding of what your spine care problem is, and whether surgery is the right thing for you or not.
​
If you’re over 50 years of age it’s an even bet that there are abnormalities in your MRI that could “sell” you an operation. Most of those common abnormalities bring no symptoms and need no treatment.
Your MRI alone never makes a treatment decision. Once the problem is defined by a detailed history of your symptoms and advanced physical examination performed by a dedicated expert, the scans can tell a physician or a surgeon where the problem is coming from and how best to deal with it but not whether to or when to operate.
​
Spine surgery can never be guaranteed to be perfectly safe or effective, but modern spine care in expert hands can come predictably close.
We are not just another website offering Zoom or online chat with a surgeon or nurse practitioner who tells you the same thing.
​
Nowhere in the world are good spine surgeons looking for work. Advancing technology lets us treat more people with greater benefit all the time, and an aging population brings us more and more patients. So everybody’s busy.
Surgeon websites offering these remote-access “assessments” don’t always lead to the most expert or successful surgeons.