Straight From The Hip

In this special season recap of  Straight From the Hip , I reflect on nine conversations that explored hip dysplasia from multiple perspectives: patients and families, psychology, clinical decision-making, trust, innovation, and the future of care. Drawing on discussions with Betsy Miller, Gemma Barber, Sammy Krathen, Dr. Kelly Rabenstein, Dr. Maurizio De Pellegrin, Dr. Joel Warsh, Dr. Tom Youm, D...

My guest today is Dr. Jacob Jaremko, and we are discussing a topic that may change how we diagnose developmental dysplasia of the hip around the world: artificial intelligence. For decades, hip ultrasound has been central to early detection. Yet despite its value, it remains highly dependent on the person performing and reading the scan. Small differences in image acquisition, landmark identificat...

Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh — a pediatrician who has written extensively about trust, communication, and decision-making in modern pediatrics. He is the author of  Between a Shot and a Hard Place , which explores the vaccine conversation through the lens of informed consent and respectful dialogue, and  Parenting at Your Child’s Pace , which focuses on development...

Today’s episode is about innovation in orthopedics — where it works, where it fails, and how ideas actually move from theory into clinical practice. My guest is Manoj Ramachandran, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who has consistently positioned himself as an innovator operating at the intersection of surgery, technology, and systems design . Over the years, he has explored artificial intelligence i...

This episode is part three of this mini-series dedicated to Patient Leadership. Today, we approach hip dysplasia from a different, essential perspective: behavioral health. I’m lucky to be joined by Dr. Kelly Rabenstein, a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She is a licensed psychologist wo...

In this mini series, of episodes, I’ve been exploring the lived experience of hip dysplasia, not just the science, but what it actually feels like to live with this condition. Today’s guest is Samantha “Sammy” Krathen, one of the founders of a community called  The Hipsters: the-hipsters.com Sammy brings a perspective we don’t hear often enough in medicine, the voice of a teenager navigating hip d...

This episode is part of a Patient Leadership Series, where I highlight the voices of individuals who have lived with hip dysplasia and chosen to turn that experience into action. Today I’m speaking with Gemma Barber from the United Kingdom. Gemma has lived with developmental dysplasia of the hip and has become a powerful advocate within the UK community. Through her advocacy work and her recent Sp...

This is a special video episode of the podcast meant as a public service announcement to help parents understand what matters for baby hips!

On this podcast, I've explore developmental dysplasia of the hip from every angle: the science, the evolution of treatment, the lived experience, and how patients and families make sense of a diagnosis that can follow them across decades. Today’s episode is a wide-ranging conversation with Betsy Miller, author of  The Parents’ Guide to Hip Dysplasia , (https://betsymillerbooks.weebly.com), a b...

Today I’m joined by Maurizio De Pellegrin from Parma, Italy, and we’re going to do something I enjoy: highlight a set of practical contributions, then stress-test what the data really support.  We start with a question parents ask all the time—often more urgently than they ask about the hip itself: Will treatment delay my child’s milestones? De Pellegrin’s recent work examines walking age and moto...

Today’s guest is Dr. Thomas Youm from NYU Langone Health a high-volume hip arthroscopist. The focus of the conversation is a niche but common clinical scenario: femoroacetabular impingement syndrome in the setting of borderline hip dysplasia—typically defined by a lateral center-edge angle between 20 and 25 degrees. We use several recent papers from Dr. Youm’s group as the starting point, but the...

This 50th-episode recap of Straight from the Hip brings together some of the most important themes we’ve covered over the past block of conversations: how we share knowledge, how we generate and question evidence, and how we safely push the field forward. I revisit episodes with Nick Fletcher on podcasting as a serious medium for medical education; Simon Thomas and Emily Dodwell on long-term outco...

Today I’m joined by Dan Sucato, Chief of Staff at Texas Scottish Rite for Children, an institution that currently sits at the top of the U.S. News & World Report rankings for pediatric orthopedics. We start with Perthes, specifically, one of the most complex reconstructions we have for the post-Perthes deformity: femoral head reduction osteotomy. Dr. Sucato is one of the few surgeons worldwide...

Michael Vitale, Chief of Pediatric Spine Surgery at Columbia, joins me to talk about one thing: how to make surgery safer. We walk through why he became obsessed with safety, and how high-stakes spine surgery forced a rethink of teams, errors, and systems under pressure. We break down core principles: planning, standardization, human factors, checklists that actually work, and psychological safety...

If you’ve listened to this show in the past or our sister show (Hip & Happening), you already know today’s guest: Valerie Parrish, the Director of Patient Advocacy and Engagement at the IHDI. This episode was recorded right after our IHDI 2.0 symposium in New York, In this conversation: We talk about baby positioning and baby-wearing. We get into early detection and why we still miss hips — an...

Today’s episode is a real privilege. I had the chance to sit down with Perry and Jon Schoenecker, a father and son who represent two distinct but complementary approaches to orthopedics. Perry is a giant in clinical orthopedics, with decades of work shaping how we think about hip dysplasia, hip preservation, and surgical decision-making. Jon, meanwhile, brings a different perspective, grounded in...

Today’s episode is a bit meta, in the best way. We’re talking about podcasting  as  a medical medium: not just a way to pass time on a commute, but a tool to reshape how we communicate, teach, and share orthopedic knowledge. My guest is Dr. Nick Fletcher from Atlanta. He’s a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Emory, the Medical Director of the Spine Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, an...

On this episode I have a candid conversation with: Dror Paley, the founder of the Paley Orthopedic & Spine Institute in Florida, the Paley European Institute in Poland, and the Paley Institute Middle East in Abu Dhabi. He’s a pioneer in deformity correction and one of the surgeons who introduced the Ilizarov method to North America. In hip surgery, he developed the SUPER Hip procedure, along w...

On today’s episode, I talk with Emily Dodwell of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.    We begin discussing her background and how she views some of the known facts about hip dysplasia, such as risk factors and current best practices for non-operative treatment, leading into variation in screening strategies around the world.   We talk about a population-based study she published using d...

This week, I speak with Dave Bailey, the CEO of OrthoPediatrics, an American bioscience company based in Warsaw, Indiana, that designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes orthopedic implants and instruments for pediatric issues. I invited Dave to discuss the intersection of industry and patient care. His vision talk at a recent event resonated with my mission to provide the best care to as ma...

On today’s episode, I talk with Simon Thomas, Consultant Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. Trained in both the United Kingdom and Canada, including under the legacy of John Wedge and Robert Salter in Toronto, Simon offers a perspective shaped by two systems with different approaches to developmental dysplasia of the hip. We begin by examining how training l...

In this special recap episode, I revisit highlights from recent episodes of  Straight from the Hip , covering topics including social media’s influence on patient narratives, burnout and work-life boundaries, and the evolving landscape of hip preservation. I share insights from conversations with Joel Wells, Chris Iobst, and Ben Domb, respond to listener questions, and reflect on how centers of ex...

This week, I’m talking about  simulation in healthcare and medical education . Whether in surgery, anesthesiology, or even hip dysplasia screening, simulation allows for repeated practice, error correction, and improved confidence—all without putting patients at risk. To explore this, I’m joined by  Rodrigo Rubio , professor of anesthesiology and director of the Center for Simulation at the Americ...

On today’s episode, I sit down with  Wesley Theunissen , an orthopedic surgeon based at the  Máxima Medical Center in Veldhoven, Netherlands . He recently published a compelling study on  spontaneous recovery in stable dysplastic hips , challenging the traditional approach of immediate bracing. Hip dysplasia management remains a  controversial  topic, particularly in mild cases. Some hips initiall...

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Evelyn Kuong, a consultant in the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology and an Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. We start by discussing her recent research on predicting residual dysplasia at skeletal maturity after closed reduction for developmental dislocation of the hip, identifying age-specific acetabular index cuto...