Hadassah Back With Cutting-Edge Surgeon
An orthopedic surgeon whose life has been linked to Hadassah from the start is speaking in Atlanta this month as part of a tour of the Southeast.
Josh Schroeder, whose career with the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem began in 2006, is on the cutting edge of treating spinal injuries at the Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus medical campuses by using robots to make surgical repairs and stem cells to speed healing.
“Surgery, and medicine altogether, is an art more than an exact science,” Schroeder said in a conference call from Jerusalem. “We want to reproduce a result. … Surgery needs to be exact.”
Robotic surgery enhances reproducibility and accuracy and is continually improving in quality and ease of use, he said, although we’re still decades away from robots operating without a surgeon at the controls.
Schroeder cited the case of an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who had spinal tuberculosis 50 years ago and had a severely curved back. Robotic surgery enabled the doctor to place screws exactly where they were needed to repair the man’s anatomy.
That was just one example of the variety of unusual cases he said he sees at Hadassah, which draws patients of all religions and ethnicities from Israel and Palestinian-controlled areas. Schroeder estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of the cases he sees are traumas (about a fifth of which are emergencies), 15 percent are tumors, 40 percent are diseases, and the rest are forms of degeneration.
“Hadassah is a fantastic place,” said Schroeder, who was born at Hadassah Mount Scopus. “It’s a very unusual situation. … We’re pushing the limits of Western medicine.”
The doctor will share stories of Hadassah’s medical advances and his cases during “He’s Got Your Back,” a Hadassah dessert reception at Congregation Or Hadash, 7460 Trowbridge Road, Sandy Springs, at 7:15 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14. The suggested donation for attendees is $18. RSVP by Nov. 10 to aking@hadassah.org or 470-482-6778.
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