Joseph O. Cortes | Business Mirror

R, a 13-year-old female high-school student in Metro Manila, has a severe case of scoliosis. Her spinal column is shaped like the letter S, with curves that are angled by as much as 50 degrees. When you look at her from the back, one of her shoulders is higher, while the other droops down. Aside from stunting her growth, her ailment has been a cause of insecurity. Doctors say that if she does not get sufficient medical attention now, her spinal column will continue to bend and will cause her further disabilities.

M, a 26-year-old male construction worker, fell 10 feet to the ground while fixing a lamppost. The fall fractured his spinal column, causing paralysis to his legs and lower part of the body, and numbness in his arms. A fracture in the neck area of his spinal column has rendered him flat on his back, immobile and bedridden. Doctors are in a hurry to correct his neck injury to enable him to at least sit up. While the function of his limbs may not return, they hope the operation in the neck area will improve his quality of life and be less of a burden to his family.

Such grim medical emergencies may seem to be hopeless cases, but many of our doctors are now adequately trained to provide the appropriate medical intervention to correct, if not alleviate, these problems. There is no more need to travel abroad to receive the appropriate medical attention, since there is now a growing interest among local doctors to specialize on the spine.

From June 18 to 20, The Medical City (TMC) hosted a rare Operative Course in Spinal Surgery, co-organized by the Asia-Pacific Orthopedic Association (APOA) and the Philippine Spine Society (PSS), where simultaneous spinal procedures were performed in the hospital's operating rooms, the videos of which were streamed live to participating local and international orthopedic and spinal surgeons.

The last time a similar event was held in the country was 15 years ago. This time, the course provided doctors specializing on spinal surgeries a chance to see how these medical procedures are executed.

Dr. Jose Manuel Ignacio, chairman of the Spine Convention Coordinating Committee and a TMC consultant, says the most common reason for absences among workers in the country is back pain. Considering the number of Filipinos suffering from back pain, there are very few back doctors available to service all these patients.

However, there is now a growing interest among Filipino doctors to specialize in spinal problems, especially spine surgery. Dr. Antonio Sison, PSS president and TMC consultant, says the society now has 46 regular members compared with the 12 members when the group started in 1995.

"Spine surgeons are not that many because it takes time to train them," says Sison.

The spine-surgery course was one of those opportunities where doctors can further their training on spine operations.

Dr. Rafael Claudio, chairman of the TMC Department of Orthopedics, says the course has shown that The Medical City has the capability to offer its facilities for events such as this.

"The Medical City is proud to have been selected as the host and key partner of the APOA and PSS for the Manila spine convention. It is an excellent opportunity for us to showcase our facilities and to demonstrate our medical and technological capabilities in handling complex orthopedic and spinal-surgical procedures," Claudio says.

R and M were among the 11 patients who were operated on during the course by international spinal-surgery specialists. Local specialists assisted them, while participants numbering more than a hundred viewed the procedures at the TMC's Augusto M. Barcelon Auditorium.

R was set to receive implants that would straighten her spinal column while allowing her to grow during the remaining five years of adolescence. After the operation, it is expected that she will gain a few inches that is the immediate effect of the procedure. She will also now be able to walk tall with her friends.

M is expected to no longer be bedridden. His medical situation is much similar to the spinal injury sustained by Hollywood actor Christopher Reeve. Before the operation he was on his back 24/7. After the operation, it is hoped that he can finally sit up.

Claudio notes that many of these procedures are available in the Philippines and cost just a fraction of their cost in the United States. This is a perfect opportunity for the Philippine government to promote medical tourism to patients needing these orthopedic and spinal surgery procedures. TMC's support for this endeavor also underscores that there are premier medical institutions in the country equipped with world-class facilities and surgical expertise to provide advanced surgical solutions for spine problems.

Known to pioneer many of the advances in spinal surgery in the world, the APOA provided international speakers and surgeons to the Spine Convention, while the PSS developed the lectures, provided local speakers and surgeons, raised funds to cover the hospitalization and costs of the spinal implants, and invited local participants to the event.

Sison says, "The Operative Course was aimed at significantly adding to the knowledge of the participating surgeons and contributing to the capabilities of Filipino surgeons, and to the actual field of spinal surgery in the Philippines. As an internationally endorsed course, it will once again put the Philippines on the map as a topnotch spinal-surgery hub in this part of the world. This will add prestige to the region and to the Philippines, as well as proclaim the Philippines that the Filipino surgeon is capable of most spine-surgery techniques performed internationally."

He adds that local spine surgeons are on a par with their foreign counterparts resulting from the exposure of our surgeons in handling a wider variety of spine-related cases that appear to be more endemic in developing nation's such as degenerative, deformity, trauma, tumor and infectious diseases.