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Accelerated Recovery Program

The Total Joint and Spine Center has been a vital part of Williamson Medical Center since its inception in 1998. The brainchild of the late Craig Ferrell, M.D., the Total Joint and Spine Center was created to be a facility focused wholly on diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of joint replacements and spinal surgeries.

A team of orthopaedic surgeons has carried on Ferrell’s legacy by continuing to foster a level of excellence and placing the focus on educating and informing total joint replacement and spinal patients before, during and after their procedures.

In 2012, the Joint and Spine Center began its new Accelerated Recovery Program. This program helps total joint replacement patients like yourself get on an expedited path to recovery that minimizes downtime. The ARP is a multi-disciplinary approach that combines patient education and pre-operative pain control to help you walk just hours after your surgery instead of the next day.

The average hospital stay for a joint replacement has traditionally been three to four days. With the ARP, non-sedating pain medications are given before surgery, which enables a patient to be alert and comfortable enough to be able to begin rehab right away. In most cases, patients are released from the hospital after only one to two days.

We performed nearly 1,000 total joint replacements in 2013 with average length of stay down to less than 3 days.

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