With the new year just around the corner, spine surgeons are thinking about their main focus in 2025.
Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. Becker's invites all spine surgeon and specialist responses.
Next question: What are your key considerations when deciding whether to expand your practice into new markets or add new service lines?
Please send responses to Carly Behm at cbehm@beckershealthcare.com by 5 p.m. CST Wednesday, Dec. 4.
Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What is your top priority in 2025?
Tan Chen, MD. Geisinger Musculoskeletal Institute (Danville, Pa.): To continue to develop my skillset as a minimally invasive spine surgeon so that I can provide tailored care to each of my patients and to be in an environment that encourages innovation, technology and career growth.
Brian Gantwerker, MD. The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: My top priority is to keep my work-life balance. It is very important to me that my family not suffer the slings and arrows of business success. In the end, no one cares if you did 300 cases a year. Being the busiest surgeon does not equate to being the happiest.
Jason Liauw, MD. Hoag Orthopedic Institute (Laguna Hills, Calif.): A top priority for this year is the merging of our neurosurgical and orthopedic spine practices. We believe this will drive comprehensive spinal care in the market and bring distinction to the group as a hybrid group in Orange County. While there is increasing overlap between neurosurgery and orthopedics with regard to spine, the merger stands to bring complementary skill sets together. Neurosurgery tends to subspecialize in spinal oncology, endoscopic spine, and neuromodulation.Orthopedic spine brings a lot of experience with deformity correction and complex spinal osteotomies to the table.
Noam Stadlan, MD. Endeavor Health Neurosciences Institute (Skokie and Highland Park, Ill.): My top priority in 2025 remains providing the absolute best and most compassionate care possible for my patients.
Alexander Tuchman, MD. Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles): My foremost priority in 2025 is to maintain an unwavering focus on quality care in all my interactions. As spine surgeons, we encounter growing pressures to emphasize cost-effectiveness, innovation, and efficiency. While these elements are vital to the overall healthcare system, they must never compromise quality. In my conversations with administration, industry leaders, and policymakers, I will stress that my foremost role is that of a clinician. As a clinician first, it is essential that I advocate for the highest quality clinical care for every individual patient whenever the opportunity arises.
Hao-Hua Wu, MD. UCI Health (Orange, Calif.): With the rate of metastatic cancer to the spine increasing year over year, my top priority is to provide the best care to patients with spine tumors in Orange County. At UCI Health, we are one of the few hospital systems in California that have the capability to utilize advanced carbon fiber implants for spine tumor patients in need of surgery. This cutting-edge technology allows patients to potentially receive lower doses of radiation if postoperative radiation is necessary. Additionally, along with additional UCI Health Neurosurgery, we have started a Spine Tumor Board that meets weekly to discuss complex cases with a round table of experts, including radiation oncology, radiology, hematology-oncology, neurosurgery and orthopaedic surgery. My priority in 2025 is to continue growing UCI Health's spine tumor program so that patients in Southern California with complex disease can continue to receive world-class care.
Christian Zimmerman, MD. St. Alphonsus Medical Group and SAHS Neuroscience Institute (Boise, Idaho): My top priority for 2025 will be actions that support focus on essentials, and simultaneously, preventing the consumption and steerage by all the unsound noise. This country remains at a point of terminal conflict and resultant separation. Equivocally, our politics and populace through the many interwoven cultures/morays/elections demand it. In my estimation. counterproductive choices in this day and age. Americans, in particular healthcare providers should be striving for a more prosperous and healthier citizenry, yet the focus of some, sustains more secular and exclusive practice patterns. Self-accountability parallels one's pride in hard work and fulfillment. Healthcare delivery should have equal designation in its entirety by all providers. Affirmation by being that example is one method of teaching, the other being an advocate for the underserved starting with our veterans and aged. Elections do have consequences, and maybe these folks will garner some of the benefits.