New Delhi: SPEED is Aakash Healthcare’s mantra of flawless knee replacement surgery. To pick from the latest glossary, this uniquely curated algorithm is a guarantee of best outcome, eliminating one and all possible untoward occurrence that might jeopardize the limbs for long.
This knee replacement program is what makes Aakash Healthcare the most credible centre of excellence in India. For Dr Aashish Chaudhry, ace orthopedic surgeon and MD of this multispeciality hospital at Dwarka, flawless Total Knee Replacement (TKR) surgery is the Holy Grail.
Sample this- Issac Doru, 55 year old football player and technician of Indian Football Team, was put out of action, thanks to his worn out knees. But after SPEED guided knee replacement in Aakash Healthcare in 2019 by Dr Aashish Chaudhary, Mr Doru got his knees as new and is still sprinting like his former self. After surgery, in just three weeks, Mr Doru was climbing stairs, galloping at that!! But for SPEED, the outcome could have gone other way as well. God forbid, in case of surgery going awry in absence of such nuanced care, Mr Doru’s life might have been saga of trauma and torture.
JC Chaudhry, Dr Aashish’s iconic father, is best trophy of his SPEED success. Dr Aashish Chaudhry did his knee replacement surgery in 2017. Due to bad knee, his papa could hardly walk or climb stair but after surgery by his son, he is long back in harness.
SPEED program factors all possible consequences namely pain, infection, failure, need for revision and effectively preempts them. In acronym, S stands for Safety protocols, P stands for Painless, E stands for Exact fit, 2nd E stands for Express Rehabilitation and D stands for Durability of implant.
Instances of Mr Doru like clean success story abound in about 7000 knee replacement Dr Chaudhry has done so far. With SPEED program in place, such outcome is the rule rather than exception in Aakash Healthcare. Talking to Medicare News, Dr Chaudhry spoke at length about the need of protocols and precautions needed for best outcome. Dr Chaudhry said, “SPEED is the hallmark of the meticulous knee replacement surgery in Aakash Healthcare. Ours is a holistic knee replacement program. Doing perfect surgery alone is not enough, other very crucial aspects have to be taken into account to make surgery sustainable. Our program is team based, not surgeon based. We have assembly line system in TKR. The surgery here entails 34 fixed steps which we religiously follow and never bypass. To keep distraction at minimum, most of the time team members talk through eyes. Such OT discipline is a must.”
Dr Chaudhry further said, ‘Pain could be the most daunting experience. To preempt this, we take utmost care as the experience could be off putting. Once the excruciating pain is experienced during one knee replacement, the patient will swear never to go for another leg’s knee replacement. Infection, failure and the need of revision are outcomes of a botched surgery and puts patients’ life in a lot of traumatic experience.
Unlike literal meaning of the acronym SPEED, Dr Chaudhry is never in a hurry. In this sense, SPEED may seem a bit of a misnomer. He has no penchant for flaunting his numbers like some orthopedic surgeons do. He would rather like to flaunt quality of surgery. The safety and best outcome of the patient is uppermost on his mind and he would pull out all stops to achieve the best. SPEED is what makes Dr Aashish a cut above the rest in knee replacement surgery domain. He is out to establish highest benchmark of knee replacement and has very thoughtfully created nuanced way forward.
Dr Chaudhry says, “We hear all kinds of oils claiming no need of knee replacement surgery but the truth is knee replacement has no alternative. In times to come, the need of this technology will increase exponentially. As for now, 12 lakh people are in need of knee replacement but hardly two and half lakh get their knees replaced. For one, in India there is no mature audience to understand the need of getting painful knee replaced. They suffer in silence but would not go for knee replacement. They should understand that the surgery would transform their lives completely and give them new lease of life.”
But Dr Chaudhry has a word of caution for those who go gung ho in activities after knee replacement surgery. Dr Chaudhry says, ‘ I advice my patients to go for only low contact sports namely swimming, golfing, table tennis and double badminton. People after this surgery should be well advised not to tempt fate.
Summing up, Health and Wellness Congress has recently awarded him as the most iconic healthcare leader of India not for nothing. It is for sure the testament to his standing as an ace orthopedic surgeon for more than 20 years now. His SPEED program has indeed revolutionized the TKR procedure in the country.
