DISC Sports & Spine Center has announced the addition of Rojeh Melikian, M.D. to its growing staff of top spine surgeons.
Rojeh Melikian, M.D. Joins DISC Sports & Spine Center
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“Rojeh is a welcome addition to the DISC family, ” said Dr. Khurana in the January 20, 2016 news release. “He brings world-class credentials and training to our group, so we can continue our tradition of excellence in spine care.”
As indicated in the news release, “Dr. Melikian, who has authored numerous presentations, posters and journal articles on spine surgery, has a special focus on cervical and lumbar degenerative spine surgery, lateral-access and anterior surgery (XLIF and ALIF), minimally invasive surgery, spine trauma and spinal tumors.”
“After graduating summa cum laude with a B.S. in Neuroscience from UCLA, Dr. Melikian completed medical school at the University of Southern California, where he became a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and graduated with highest distinction. He was subsequently accepted into the prestigious Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program, in which he excelled and was appointed as Chief Resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Melikian received extensive training in complex spinal surgery and scoliosis, as well as primary and metastatic spine tumors. While at Harvard, he received the Partners in Excellence Award and Harvard Orthopaedic Surgery Thesis Day Award for his clinical presentation work on spinal infections. Dr. Melikian completed his Spine Surgery Fellowship at Emory University.”
Dr. Melikian told OTW, “My first steps will be to start serving the surrounding community by joining the other surgeons at DISC in providing high-quality spine care, as well as working on implementing patient reported outcome measures which can be used to track the quality of our work.”
“I’m most excited about recent advances in spine surgery, which are allowing us to perform surgeries in a more targeted, minimally invasive fashion. These advances have also allowed the team here at DISC to pioneer techniques which allow a wider range of surgeries to be done in an outpatient setting, allowing for faster recovery times and lower infection rates.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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