← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Kiorgi Prusavanik, the founder of Spine Doctor Miami, who joins us today to share insights into his background, healthcare trends he's keeping on, and a bit more. Dr. Bruce Ivanik, thank you so much for joining me.
- [00:18]
B
Thank you so much for having me, Chanel. I'm honored.
- [00:20]
A
Perfect. Well, to get us started, can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about Spine doctor Miami?
- [00:26]
B
Absolutely. So I'm a minimally invasive spine surgeon. My little group is called the Spine doctor Miami, and we're a group of spine specialists who are really focused on back pain and neck pain, both from surgical and non surgical standpoint.
- [00:44]
A
Got it, got it. And in your field today, so either in spine or in healthcare overall, can you talk about what trends you're currently watching?
- [00:53]
B
So I think that the most relevant are two. One is endoscopy. So we're seeing a significant innovation in the field of using tiny little skinny cameras and arthroscopes. The other thing that is really sort of a well proven path with amazing potential is motion preservation. And what I'm seeing is that I can officially cure neck and back pain by restoring normal anatomy and without having the patients lose their motion. And what I'm talking about specifically is disc replacement. Now, it's tempting to also talk about AI, and I think that that definitely has a lot of potential, but there really isn't a market where this has made a difference beyond just research.
- [01:55]
A
Got it, got it. So a lot of innovative things happening in your field with endoscopy, motion preservation, and the potential of AI. But looking forward into the end of 2025 and moving into 2026, what are you most focused on and excited about?
- [02:11]
B
The two things that I'm most excited about are minimally invasive ways to help people fix failed back surgeries. Specifically, non unions and adjacent level problems can be addressed through an exposure that avoids going through old scarred, fibrosed tissue. So for example, someone who has a laminectomy or a discectomy for a degenerative disc, they may continue to suffer from back pain. So we can sneak in through the front or through the side and replace that disc, avoiding the old scarred path. So even though it's a revision operation, the patients really do as well as someone who's having their first operation. And that's definitely something I'm very excited about. I say to patients all the time that it's kind of a really good time to be a spine surgeon, because with a couple of these methods of ensuring where the pain is coming from, which I'm sort of well known for, once you know exactly where the pain is coming from, you can reliably correct the problem.
- [03:12]
A
That is definitely exciting. And now that we've looked in the future of it, looking back at the past six to 18 months, can you talk about either an initiative or a project or just something that you're proud of?
- [03:23]
B
Oh, absolutely, gladly. The vast majority of patients who come to see me have nerve pain. And when nerve pain emanates from the neck, it may present a shoulder pain, arm pain, forearm pain, or even just finger pain. So as a spine surgeon, my job is to ensure the diagnosis first, meaning I first have to be certain that I know where the pain is coming from. And to take nerve pain in the upper extremity specifically, I often have to ask a question. Is it coming from the elbow or from the neck? Now, elbow pain is super common, and patients will often say that they wake up having to shake their hands or they'll have significant tingling in their forearm, consistent with the carpal tunnel or cubital tunnel, respectively. So I created a device that simply wraps the elbow in a comfy pillow that stays on snugly but doesn't make one feel hot or limited in motion. And I thought that this would be a good way to differentiate patients who have elbow pain from neck pain. I keep a patient from hyper flexing their elbow at night, and if the pain disappears, then we know that it was elbow pain all along. And if they wear this thing and they still wake up with the same sensations, then we know it's coming from the neck. What blew me away was the public response, because I gave it to a few patients and they all reported the resolution of symptoms after just the first night. But they didn't talk about resolution of symptoms on and off. They talked about a cure. They talked about that they don't travel anywhere without the pillow, and they were shocked that it worked from day one, and, you know, others stopped working, stop using it, and the pain didn't come back. They gave their elbow sufficient rest and the pain didn't come back. Jokingly, we call this pillow pillow for pain. And now it's something that I honestly can't practice without.
- [05:24]
A
That's truly incredible to hear. And now, as a founder, innovator doctor, you're the perfect person to ask this. Can you share some advice that you would give to evolving leaders maybe looking to have the same success and drive in their careers as you have.
- [05:39]
B
Yeah, I would definitely advise them to not listen to anyone. I would advise them to really think for themselves and analyze data. Nowadays you can find supporting evidence for any point of view and it takes me about a minute to write a meta analysis with citations with perfect article requirements, as opposed to taking three to six months to write an article even 10 years ago. So data will be coming in significant volume, but you really have to look at data, look at the sources and make sure that the information that you are using is truly as reliable as we think. So sources like Pubmed are still a necessity. Even if it was ChatGPT or another AI source that created the article, we still can't step away completely from at least looking at abstracts of good publications. And we can't step away too far from remembering that we must continue to critically analyze the authors. If the authors were paid for the publication, the publication is negligible. And when it comes to things like stem cells that have become incredibly in vogue, incredibly common and popular in medicine, without any significant evidence based support, quality evidence based support, there's definitely a reason to worry about false information driving traffic in medicine.
- [07:13]
A
Well, Dr. Brusavanik, that is excellent advice and a great place to end. I want to thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Thank you so much.
- [07:23]
B
Thank you, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.