Roger Hartl, MD

And that's exactly what we have now.

Yeah, I wish it was smooth sailing.

It's not.

In our case, it really worked because

I mean, as individual physicians, we all want to work together.

The problem is then bureaucracy comes in the way and the bureaucracy in terms of the logistics, the infrastructure, the financial aspect.

In our case at Oxfam, it worked because it was really obviously envisioned by individuals, but then really supported and put into practice by the hospital and by the universities, you know?

And I think that's really important.

If you want to build something like a multidisciplinary spine center, you need the support of the overarching structure.

And in our case, that's the hospital and the university.

And that's the key to success.

And unfortunately, we've had that and we have that.

But obviously, then you also need the individual subspecialties, departments and so forth to all be willing to work together.

Yeah, that's a great question.

It didn't happen out of the blue.

On the Cornell side, we've had experience building a spine center since the early 2000s, and it was really initially just...

a bunch of surgeons and non-operative doctors who had an interest in spine.

And we started meeting every week, and we had a conference.

We had a case conference.

We found a neuroradiologist with an interest in spine.