Interventionalist Spine Surgeons Call to Arms

The Society of Advanced Spinal Intervention (SASI) is holding its first meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, on Saturday, November 16, 2013.

Turf War

In the scope of practice turf war between interventional pain physicians and board certified orthopedic and spine surgeons, the interventionalists have been treated as a step-child by established surgical societies. So they are forming their own society to develop and implement a program of education and training which they hope results in accreditation that will serve as the gold standard for physicians in the field of spinal intervention.

One of the meeting presenters, Richard Kaul, M.D., is the target of an attempt by the New Jersey Attorney General to take away his medical license because he performs procedures allegedly outside his training as an interventionalist. The former president of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and neurosurgeon Greg Przybylski, M.D., was the state’s star witness in testifying that surgeons with Dr. Kaul’s credentials “deviate” from standards established by NASS.

New Standards

Solomon Kamson, M.D., SASI’s president, will present the new SASI-endorsed standard for MISS (minimally invasive spine surgery), called the “Rule of Five [ROF].” Those five rules are:

1. Fluoroscopic guidance and interpretation
2. Minimal muscle dissection
3. Must qualify for outpatient
4. Minimal blood loss (150 cc)
5. Time from completion of surgery to discharge of less than 12 hours

SASI

Through an October 14, 2013 press release, the society states that, “As the ROF becomes the internationally accepted standard, SASI is committed to working with other societies and organizations to promote better understanding, training, proctoring and credentialing of future generations of talented MIS surgeons. SASI and its network of member physicians are actively monitoring developments in landmark MIS-related court cases, which are ongoing and are the result of the spine turf wars. These are the battles evidenced by a plethora of lawsuits over what constitutes safe, effective standards and practice of medicine related to surgical treatment of back and neck pain.”

The society calls itself a, “unifying global society whose mission is to educate, train, and credential physicians from multidisciplinary backgrounds on a worldwide scale. Focused on the implementation of a cost-effective healthcare delivery model for interventional pain medicine, interventional radiology, neurosurgery, and orthopedic spine surgery, SASI aims to develop and implement a world-class program of education and training resulting in accreditation that will serve as the gold standard for physicians in the field of spinal intervention.”

Panelists

Anthony Yeung, M.D., founder of the Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona, and a board certified orthopedic spine surgeon who specializes in diagnosing and treating the causes of back pain and sciatica from painful degenerative conditions of the lumbar spine, particularly herniated lumbar discs and pain from bulging discs with annular tears, will be the meeting’s special guest panelist.

Dr. Yeung is an internationally renowned endoscopic spine surgeon, the first to utilize endoscopically guided laser for painful degenerative conditions of the lumbar spine, and the developer of the FDA cleared Yeung Endoscopic Spine System (YESS).

Other panelists will include:

Daniel Bennet, M.D., – Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeon, Colorado
Jeffrey Randolph, Esq. – Healthcare Law Expert, New Jersey
Solomon Kamson, M.D. – SASI President, Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeon, State of Washington
Richard Arjun Kaul, M.D. – Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeon, Kashmir, India
Kent Remley, M.D. – Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeon, Indiana
Brant Breen – CEO and Founder of Qnary, New York
Walter Eisner – Senior Writer, Orthopedics This Week, Panama

The one-day seminar will be held at MERI, the Medical Education Research Institute in Memphis. For further information, contact: Kelley Blevins, 917-488-7124; media@sasiglobal.org.