Dr. Craig Beard discusses Orthopaedics at GGC WKONA
Watch to see Dr. Craig Beard discuss the orthopaedic process of knee replacement.
Graves Gilbert Clinic is a multispecialty clinic located in Bowling Green, Kentucky housing more than 125 physicians, 50 physician assistants and nurse practitioners who continue to lead the way in medical innovation and technology and serve South Central Kentucky with the same level of care and dedication that their founding fathers promised over 80 years ago when Dr. Graves and Dr. Gilbert shook hands and made a commitment to the future: A commitment to a Lifetime of Care. Learn more at
Full Transcript:
My name is Craig Beard and I'm an Orthopaedic surgeon here at Graves Gilbert Clinic. Knee replacement surgery is a somewhat of a refined technique; it's not the way it was 15-20 years ago much less when I first started 30 years ago. My role with a patient in going through knee replacement is to make sure that it's as smooth as a process as possible and it starts both in the office, but we continue it at the hospital and I explain to the patients that we're going to do everything we can to make this as painless as possible. We incorporate our colleagues in anesthesia, we incorporate the nursing staff, we have good communication, but it's all about making it as best one can a pleasurable experience. It's hard to imagine in putting knee replacement and pleasurable experience in the same sentence, but we try to get them through this smooth. One of the misconceptions that I have a lot of patients that come in and they have this mental picture that when they get a knee replacement that we come in and we cut above the knee, we cut below the knee, we take something out, we slap it in-between. Not really what's done. Normally what's done it's kind of a resurfacing procedure. We do a series of step-cuts, where that we try to replace the surface of the bone so that the step-cuts create kind of a bone contour that allows the metal to fit right on it, so it's kind of like putting a cap on the end of the bone with metal on one side and on the other side is plastic, so a lot of times when patients seem to understand that they feel a little better about it than having a section cut out. Our success rate with knee replacements has gotten so much better than it was in the past. Our complication rate is extremely low, less than 1% as far as infection rate, so I think that we've done a good job with trying to bring quality and checking quality to make sure that we bring the latest technology to the area. We try to get people going back to doing light duty work at 6 weeks and I’d say 80% of our patients are off their walkers within 2-3 weeks. We try to encourage patients to be patient because the knee keeps improving 6-12 months and even at 6 weeks they're not at their best and sometimes they think at 6 weeks I'm supposed to be healed and done and the body doesn't work like that, yet.
Even though we're more of a larger group, we still maintain somewhat of a small-town relationship with our patients and I take pride in being able to walk my patients through the process. I've done outreach clinics in Franklin for 20 years, I've been doing Glasgow for about 5 years and the people are just very appreciative for you being there. My patients in Bowling Green are just super people, very much like the people I knew inCampbellsville where I grew up. I've been doing this job for 31 years and I love what I do, it's been a passion ever since I blew my knee out, it's been a goal. I do enjoy, there's no other feeling like seeing a patient who's been in pain and can't walk and they get up, they take a few steps, and they look at you and they thank you. There is no other better feeling than that.
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Dr. Craig Beard discusses Orthopaedics at GGC WKONA
Watch to see Dr. Craig Beard discuss the orthopaedic process of knee replacement.
Graves Gilbert Clinic is a multispecialty clinic located in Bowling Green, Kentucky housing more than 125 physicians, 50 physician assistants and nurse practitioners who continue to lead the way in medical innovation and technology and serve South Central Kentucky with the same level of care and dedication that their founding fathers promised over 80 years ago when Dr. Graves and Dr. Gilbert shook hands and made a commitment to the future: A commitment to a Lifetime of Care. Learn more at
Full Transcript:
My name is Craig Beard and I'm an Orthopaedic surgeon here at Graves Gilbert Clinic. Knee replacement surgery is a somewhat of a refined technique; it's not the way it was 15-20 years ago much less when I first started 30 years ago. My role with a patient in going through knee replacement is to make sure that it's as smooth as a process as possible and it starts both in the office, but we continue it at the hospital and I explain to the patients that we're going to do everything we can to make this as painless as possible. We incorporate our colleagues in anesthesia, we incorporate the nursing staff, we have good communication, but it's all about making it as best one can a pleasurable experience. It's hard to imagine in putting knee replacement and pleasurable experience in the same sentence, but we try to get them through this smooth. One of the misconceptions that I have a lot of patients that come in and they have this mental picture that when they get a knee replacement that we come in and we cut above the knee, we cut below the knee, we take something out, we slap it in-between. Not really what's done. Normally what's done it's kind of a resurfacing procedure. We do a series of step-cuts, where that we try to replace the surface of the bone so that the step-cuts create kind of a bone contour that allows the metal to fit right on it, so it's kind of like putting a cap on the end of the bone with metal on one side and on the other side is plastic, so a lot of times when patients seem to understand that they feel a little better about it than having a section cut out. Our success rate with knee replacements has gotten so much better than it was in the past. Our complication rate is extremely low, less than 1% as far as infection rate, so I think that we've done a good job with trying to bring quality and checking quality to make sure that we bring the latest technology to the area. We try to get people going back to doing light duty work at 6 weeks and I’d say 80% of our patients are off their walkers within 2-3 weeks. We try to encourage patients to be patient because the knee keeps improving 6-12 months and even at 6 weeks they're not at their best and sometimes they think at 6 weeks I'm supposed to be healed and done and the body doesn't work like that, yet.
Even though we're more of a larger group, we still maintain somewhat of a small-town relationship with our patients and I take pride in being able to walk my patients through the process. I've done outreach clinics in Franklin for 20 years, I've been doing Glasgow for about 5 years and the people are just very appreciative for you being there. My patients in Bowling Green are just super people, very much like the people I knew inCampbellsville where I grew up. I've been doing this job for 31 years and I love what I do, it's been a passion ever since I blew my knee out, it's been a goal. I do enjoy, there's no other feeling like seeing a patient who's been in pain and can't walk and they get up, they take a few steps, and they look at you and they thank you. There is no other better feeling than that.
To learn more about Dr. Craig Beard, click here:
Stay up-to-date with GGC by connecting with us on Social Media!
Facebook:
Twitter:
Instagram: