HALL: Dr. Jason Thackeray: Into the operating room

Editors Note: This article is the second in a three-part series chronicling the process of having a total knee replacement and the sequence of events through the operation and rehabilitation.

I talk with Dr. Jason Thackeray to try to understand what happens in the operating room during a total knee replacement. Im introduced to Mike Kurth, Orthopaedic Sales Consultant and part of the team who gives me a feel for the part he plays in this incredibly amazing surgery.

Dr. Thackeray compliments Roger Hall, CEO of Sacred Heart Hospital, for the outstanding operating room team the hospital provides for performing this procedure. I feel like a swirling dervish has blown through as names are tossed into place. Sacred Heart provides a dedicated Scrub Tech in addition to Second Surgical Assistant, operating room Circulating Nurse, and Anesthesiologist along with many others Im sure I have missed. Shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Thackeray in every surgery is Certified First Surgical Assistant Chad Lindley.

Dr. Thackeray is quick to tell me and often repeats the fact that the medical people who will gather in this operating room are all professionals and act not as individuals but as a team.

All are important to receive the remarkable outcomes we strive for.

For my husband Norms knee implant, Dr. Thackeray chooses the Sigma rotating platform knee offered by DePuy Synthes Joint Reconstruction. This is one of the only companies in America that offers this rotating platform technology.

This knee implant is designed to accommodate bending and rotation by as much as 15 degrees. It was the first knee available in the United States designed uniquely for this type of natural rotation. The DePuy knee has been implanted since 2000 with more than 1 million chosen by surgeons around the world.

The Scrub Tech and Circulating Nurse along with Mike Kurth of DePuy Synthes are the first people to enter the operating room to begin preparations for my husbands total knee replacement. When Mike enters the room it is quiet and a bit on the chilly side. The smell is clean with a touch of crispness in the air. All of the arriving instruments were developed by DePuy for this operation. Mike brings in five or six instrument trays, each piece to be washed and sterilized. The Surgical Tech lays each instrument out on the table with extreme exactness. He works with the precision of a diamond cutter.

Each one pound knee replacement requires a femoral component, rotating platform insert, tibial component and patella (knee cap). Mike says, I have to be ready for anything the surgeon asks me for. I usually bring seven sizes of component parts to be positive I will always have the perfect match needed for each patient.

Lights come up in the room and the sounds from the arriving surgical team begins to drift around the room like quietly falling snow as each prepares his position.

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HALL: Dr. Jason Thackeray: Into the operating room