He has performed world’s highest 1,25,000 joint replacement surgeries of patients from across the world.
Dr. Vikram Shah is a world-renowned joint replacement surgeon and Chairman & Managing Director of Shalby Hospitals, which is headquartered in Ahmedabad. He has performed more than 1,25,000 joint replacement surgeries, which is highest in the world. He talks about why people from across the world flock to Shalby for their joint replacement and other complex orthopedic surgeries.
Q Shalby is number 1 in joint replacement today and performs more than 12,000 joint replacement surgeries in a year, which is highest in the world. How have you achieved this?
A I started with a small hospital in Ahmedabad way back in 1994. In those days people believed that joint pain with age can not be treated and one has to live with it. In the initial years, we concentrated on giving good results and creating awareness that osteoarthritis (arthritis of joints) that causes joint pain can be treated. People who got surgery at Shalby spread word about us and we grew very fast and today we do about 12,000 joint replacements a year. Our Ahmedabad hospital has won Medical Tourism award five times in a row, including this year.
Q What is osteoarthritis? Who is more prone to it?
Strictly speaking it is not a disease, but degeneration of joints due to aging. Almost 30 % of people over 60 suffer from it severely. Women are more likely to suffer from it than men.
Q Is joint replacement needed for all joint diseases?
In early stage osteoarthritis some dos & don’ts and taking supplements help delay the disease. But, if it is in advanced stage the only treatment is joint replacement.
Q You have treated a large number of patients for joint diseases. In your experience which is most common joint disorder?
Knee joint osteoarthritis is the most common disorder in Indian and people of Indian origin and women are more prone to this. More than 80% of our joint replacement cases are for knee replacement, and women form almost 80% of joint replacement cases. Having said this, Europeans and Africans are more prone to hip joint disease than Indians and we get many cases from African countries as well as USA, UK, Canada etc. for this.
Q How many patients from overseas seek treatment at Shalby?
We have treated about 50,000 overseas patients in last five years or so. We get patients from USA, UK, Canada, Australia as well as from a large number of African countries, both NRIs as well as people of foreign origin.
Q Besides Ahmedabad where are your hospitals in India? Is joint replacement done at all Shalby Hospitals?
Totally we have 11 hospitals and we are present in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vapi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Indore, Jabalpur and Mohali. We have experienced joint replacement surgeons at all our hospitals. However, highest number of overseas patients come to our hospitals in Ahmedabad.
Q How long is the recovery period after joint replacement?
Patient starts walking and going to washroom within hours of surgery. Next day stair climbing training starts and third day you usually go home.
Q Tell us about challenging cases of recent past that were treated successfully at Shalby.
We did hip replacement surgery of a Ghana woman whose earlier six surgeries had failed. She had suffered for 3-4 years due to this and finally our revision surgery treated her successfully. Recently, we did knee replacement surgery of a 165 kg woman from Sudan. She is the heaviest person ever to have had this surgery.
