Dr. Gbolahan Okubadejo, Board Certified Spinal and Orthopedic Surgeon
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Who is Dr. Gbolahan Okubadejo and what is his background?
This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine and Orthopedics Podcast. And I'm thrilled to be joined today by Dr. Bolan Akubadejo, a spine surgeon in New York City. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Thanks for having me.
So before we dive into our questions, could you introduce yourself and share a bit more about your background?
Absolutely. So my name is Bolan Akubadejo. I am a practicing orthopedic spine surgeon in the New York metro area. I have offices in both New York and New Jersey. I've been in practice now about 18 years. My focus is primarily spine. I do some orthopedics as well. So I went to undergrad at Brown University, med school at Johns Hopkins, did my residency at WashU. Wash University St. Louis is a very balanced program, but very strong on spine. And that's where my interest in spine developed. And in spine, typically, you can go one of two routes. You can either go with deformity, where you do a lot of scoliosis work and a lot of realignment of the spine, or you do degenerative work where you're doing disc herniations, focusing on cervical lumbar spine pathology and getting patients moving that way.
So that's where my focus is more on the cervical lumbar spine. I do decompressions. I do dish replacements. I do procedures to get patients back into their quality of life. So I did my fellowship at Eurasia Pittsburgh, which is a great hands-on fellowship. And I've been in practice since 2008.
That's great to hear. And I'd love to start, where do you see the biggest gaps in how patients are experiencing back pain versus how it's treated?
The biggest gaps, I think, is where patients initiate care. So I think a lot of patients tend to either stay home and try to get by on their own and deal with pain without really seeing anyone professionally. Some patients will start with the chiropractor and maybe talk to their personal trainer in the gym before coming in for evaluation with a doctor. So I think that's really where the gap begins. I think if they begin by seeing a physician, then we can do proper diagnostics and give them a plan and get them going a little more efficiently. So I think the more they see us, the professionals, the doctors, either primary care doctor or spine specialist, the quicker they can get to the end point when it comes to treatment of their back pain.
Yeah. And can you talk a bit about just kind of, you know, the consequences for patients, but then also you as physicians and physician practices, when patients are going to the professionals first or are putting off their care?
Absolutely. It's definitely debilitating. Some people have a fear, some people, especially when it comes to seeing a spine surgeon. A lot of patients are fearful that coming to see us means that the only solution that we'll offer is something surgical. And it's actually quite the contrary. I think no one understands the spine better than the spine surgeon because we know how it looks from the very inception. to something surgical. So we kind of have the bigger picture worldview where we can get patients into the category of treatment that will get them better most efficiently. So my preference is for people to see me once they have pain, and then I can get the diagnostics and give them an idea of what's going on and what to expect.
And patients who put their trust in me tend to have very good outcomes. So I think that's really the best way to go.
Absolutely. And I'm wondering, with the advent of internet, Google, we have social media, chat GPT now, are you seeing patients coming in and they have kind of their own preconceived ideas or misconceptions perhaps about their conditions?
Absolutely. Actually, it gets more challenging when patients have very specific ideas as to what treatment that they need. So some patients, regardless of their symptoms, if the pain's been going on for a while, let's say they've had some treatment, physical therapy, maybe injections, they'll research a very specific procedure and they come in looking for that. But without an understanding of how your pathology is what really determines the treatment, there's no way they know what they need.
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