Hello

[treefrog]

Originally Posted by tconner94

Sorry you're having problems. When I click the link, I get the specific article. I'm a member, so maybe that's the difference. Sign up for a membership. It's free and there are some good articles on there.

The article specifically addresses how outcomes, complications, operative time, and a bunch of other variables relate to surgeon experience. Some factors were statistically significantly different, others tended towards differences and some factors were no different.

The article is worth reading, and it doesn't contain much arcane terminology. If the link still doesn't work, just search for keywords "Charite" and "surgical volume" and that should give you the article.

Thanks. I actually work in an academic lab, so I have access to most journal articles. If you give me the name of the article, journal name, volume, page numbers, I should be able to pull it up. In fact I may already have it printed out, I have a lot of articles, most of which I've read.

I put in the search you suggested - this is the article that came up:
Spine. 2006 Sep 1;31(19):2270-6.
Evaluation of surgical volume and the early experience with lumbar total disc replacement as part of the investigational device exemption study of the Charité Artificial Disc.
Thanks, I am pretty sure this is the one you are referring to. I'm not positive I have already read it, but I will now. It does echo what I have heard here and other places, about surgeon experience being the number one criteria, along with correct diagnosis, for determining outcome. But it's nice to have that backed up with data.