Saint Mary's Health Network’s Post

Transcript

All right, welcome back. St. Mary's now offering brain and spine surgery services, providing a new option for people here in Northern Nevada. Joining us now, Doctor Sina Rajmond to tell us all about it. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. Alright, so you're a neurosurgeon. We hear that thrown around. What exactly does that mean? Good question, Josh. I often get patients that come in and, and unfortunately they, they kind of confuse us a little bit with with neurologist and, and pain specialist and neurosurgeon deals with the neurological maladies or pathologies that are surgical in nature. We also learn about what analysts and the pain specialist learns, but they're more pain specialist deals more with the acute and chronic pain and and treatment thereof. They also have a lot of tricks up their sleeve. They they. Can help treat those pains and neurologists also deals with more of the medical treatment of a patients maladies like strokes and Ms. that are more medication and medical related. And a neurosurgeon is really the person that steps in when when there's something that is surgical like more famously, you know, a brain tumor or something like that of that nature. If if somebody let's say they don't know what to look for if that you know. I don't know if they need to go see a specialist like you. What are some of the the Simpson symptoms or things they should they should look for before they decide that? So one of the most obvious ones, obviously brain surgeon. So brain tumors is one of the main things that that we deal with. But one of the less common on maladies that we deal with that people don't know is spine surgery. So one of the more common. Symptoms to look out for that people that people should come and see us for is besides just pain of the neck or the back. It's actually if you're dropping things, if you have balance issues, if you have difficulty buttoning up shirts. This could be something that's coming from the cervical spine, which could mean that you're having some spinal cord compression. That could be something that surgical, something to look out for besides just back pain as well. If you're actually walking around and you have tiredness in the legs, fatigue in the legs, if you have pain in the legs. On top of back pain, that's something that can be very surgical as well. Yeah, a lot of people have just those aches and bumps and bruises but if you can't do things you normally could do just like button it up your shirt, that shows there's maybe something bigger going on. Absolutely. Yeah, it could be other maladies as well, I'm not sure those are all things that are going to be something surgical, but those are things that are definitely red lights where opens up a certain size neurosurgeons eyes and says well that could be something that's related to your spinal cord and it's more surgical because that involves compression mechanical. Suppression of either your spinal cord or nerve roots or neural elements, and that is more of a surgical malady as opposed to something that's more medical or that can be treated conservatively. Sure. A lot of these surgeries, they're, they're minimally invasive. I mean, you would think getting something done like that would be, you know, really intense. And I'm not saying it's not, but very minimal and, and getting in there and getting out. We're getting better and better at the technologies and advancements that we're having nowadays. And patients are getting in and out quicker. And that's very important because especially now we've saw with COVID, obviously, you know, you don't want to be in the hospital for too long. And 80 to 90% of my patients. At least with relation to spine surgery is outpatient surgery. So you go home either same day or at least within 24 hours if they happen to have late surgery, if they overnight and go next day, that includes even, you know, back fusions. They even end up going home the next day or that day. The advancements are incredible. We're running out of time, but really quick. If someone needs to see a specialist like you do they have to get a referral first. So that is very dependent on the person and dictated by their insurance and and. And, and their situation, but in particular for us and this partnership with St. Mary's, we did this to, so that patients can stay closer to home. The purpose of this whole partnership is so that if you're in the same areas network, you no longer have to chase down your referrals. And I know people are going crazy, right? They get referred and they never hear back or they get referred and they get, they call that doctor's office and now they have to get imaging and then they go and see the associate of the surgeon. Then they have to come back and see the surgeon takes months and months and months. Our purpose now. Is that you stay close to home. So now the referral stays within the system, You get your imaging within the system. You actually even end up seeing me at your own primary care doctor's office with your own staff that you're familiar with. And so that way we can actually try to serve this community quicker in a more efficient way, closer to their home. Yeah, making it a lot easier for sure. Well, if you want to find out more, just go to stmarysreno.com, click on services and brain and spine is listed right there. Hey, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me, Josh. Thank you. We'll be right back.