Endoscopic spine surgery services started at HMC

PESHAWAR: The Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on Friday launched endoscopic spine surgery services.

Prof Dr Arif Khan, an orthopaedic surgeon, started the surgery in HMC. With continuous efforts and hard work, he has now trained his surgeon staff for operation theatre, doctors and paramedical staff and succeeded in establishing the first spine surgery unit in KP.

Endoscopic or keyhole surgery is the latest advancement in spine surgery globally. The HMC administration, particularly Prof Shehzad Akbar, HD/MD HMC, helped establish the spine surgery unit.

Dr Ali Guven, a noted endoscopic spine surgeon from Turkey, was invited to perform and train the spine surgery team at HMC. Dr Ali Gurven spent two days, October 25 and26, 2018 at HMC and performed as well as supervised six cases of endoscopic spine surgeries.

He also offered that his services would always be there whenever needed in future and promised to hold another training workshop in endoscopic spine surgery at HMC in near future.

It is really a great honour and prestige for the management staff and people of KP that latest technology and expertise in spine surgery are available at their doorstep. Prof Arif Khan and this spine team expressed their gratitude to the management of HMC, especially the cooperation of HMC HD/MD Prof Shehzad Akber, chairman BoG Sahibzada Saeed and all board members for their keen interest in developing the latest technology in HMC.

Many new specialties have emerged within orthopaedics and are rapidly developing. The specialty, however, remained neglected in Pakistan and a few people took interest in initiating and developing this specialty.

The development of spine surgery started in late 1990s when a few people dared to enter and tried their luck in this sub-specialty but none made an impact and eventually spine cases were referred to the doctors in other provinces.