I ride my bicycle to my first and only appointment at Riverside Orthopedics. Welcome to assembly-line medicine. Elias Kassapidis, MD seems competent enough, instantly diagnosing me with osteoarthritis in the right knee and hip as soon as he takes a look at my x-rays. He observes that my right hip joint is more oval-shaped than the left one, a congenital defect. As a result, my cartilage cushion is nearly worn away, thus producing the pain that sent me here. Although he can't pinpoint if my worn knee or hip is more responsible, he outlines a course of treatment for both that includes painkillers, injections and eventual surgery. He suggests that the prognosis is good because I'm active and obviously fit for my age, but he admits that I probably never will run again, something I had to give up years ago because of knee pain.
After prescribing meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory drug, Dr. Kassapidis observes that the shoes I'm wearing, sneakers, are likely to produce less pain that those with harder soles. When I express concern about living alone and having to climb up 2 flights of stairs post-surgery if I decide to go that route, he blithely responds that in such cases, patients are typically sent to a rehab facility like NYU's Rusk Center. He also mentions that 10,000 New Yorkers have joint replacements annually.
