[notmytarga]

The surgery is common enough so that any medium size town (50-80 K) will have a surgeon doing a few a month. My medium sized town serves a wide area and we have 4-5 of our 7-8 orthopods doing total shoulders. The others concentrate on the hip and knee replacements.

Going to a big referral center only really gets you travel and housing expenses and perhaps fellows/trainees doing the case under the direction of the guy you wanted to do it - who might have designed the parts, written a book, marketed himself and may not have great skills.

Sacramento will have dozens of capable shoulder replacement surgeons. The surgery is done for arthritis and when the proximal humerus is broken in a bad way - so general orthopods get experience with it. Sometimes the best way to find a surgeon is to ask the physical therapists - they know who communicates well AND has good results.

All that being said, Steve Weber in Sacramento is the name given to me by a sports ortho friend. In SF, Tom Norris gets the nod. But then again, they may just give great lectures.......

Speaking of marketing - here is some info to take with salt grains Orthopedic Treatment Stories - A Nation In Motion