Risks and Benefits of Surgery

It is important to understand the problem we are trying to solve with surgery, goals of treatment, potential risks involved, and postoperative rehabilitation expectations. If you do not understand these things or have additional questions, please contact our office and Dr. Taylor will discuss with you.

  • Goals of surgery are to reduce pain and improve function.
  • Please review the material provided on this website, video content, and diagrams that Dr. Taylor drew for you at your visit to become as informed about your problem as possible.
  • As you review the education material, we encourage you to write out any questions that come up so that Dr. Taylor can address them prior to your surgery.
  • The risks of surgery include but are not limited to infection, blood loss, potential injury to nerves or blood vessels, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, stroke, complications related to anesthesia, death, failure of fixation, failure of implanted hardware, failure of healing, joint stiffness, weakness, lost range of motion, joint stiffness, persistent pain, complex regional pain syndrome, need for future operations, and the risk of re-injury. We make every effort to minimize the aforementioned risks, but complications do occasionally occur despite the best efforts or surgeon, anesthesiologist, and patient. Dr. Taylor will review all of these risks with you in person as well as any specific to the planned surgical procedure.
  • You always have the option to NOT have surgery.