Champion Orthopaedics
High-Quality Orthopaedic Care
Providing Exceptional Service to Patients in New Mexico
Champion Orthopaedics is proud to serve patients in Alamogordo, NM and surrounding communities, bringing patients the latest advances in orthopaedic care. We offer a full range of orthopaedic treatment options, including joint replacement, sports medicine, fracture and trauma care, osteoporosis treatment, and physical therapy and rehabilitation.
At Champion Orthopaedics, we believe that open communication, personal attention, and shared decision-making are critical for all of our patients. We strive to provide exceptional care by getting to know you as a partner in your care. Our comprehensive physical examinations include onsite digital imaging services to ensure you get an accurate diagnosis. Our board certified orthopaedic surgeons will then develop a treatment plan that helps you return to your favorite activities as quickly and safely as possible.
Our expert surgeons and staff are here for you throughout the entire care process, and are happy to answer any questions you may have along the way. We look forward to helping you!
Selected Podcast
Champion Orthopaedics
Featured Speaker:
Denise Race, RN, BSN, MBA, MHA
Denise Race, RN, BSN, MBA, MHA is a Director of Operations GCRMC Physician Practices and Director of the Orthopaedic Service Line. Transcription:
Champion Orthopaedics
Prakash Chandran: Champion Orthopedics is proud to serve patients in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and surrounding communities, bringing patients latest advances in orthopedic care. They offer a full range of orthopedic treatment options, including joint replacement, sports medicine, fracture and trauma care, osteoporosis treatment, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. Joining us to discuss more about this is Denise Race, the Director of the Orthopedic Service Line at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center.
Welcome to the Champions for Wellness Podcast brought to you by the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. We believe knowledge is the key that opens the door to a healthy life. I'm your host, Prakash Chandran. Denise, thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. I wanted to get started by asking, tell us about some of the most common things that you do there at Gerald Champion.
Denise Race, RN: Well, I'm a nurse by trade. So on a day to day basis, I'm in charge of the operations of any patient that enters our facility that's going to have a myriad of orthopedic procedures or appointments done. I help coordinate all of their care and make sure that they have a seamless recovery if they do have a surgical procedure done.
Prakash Chandran: Okay. Great. And we're talking about Champion Orthopedics today. Tell us a little bit more about what that is and how that integrates with the rest of Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center.
Denise Race, RN: Well, Champion Orthopedics is a specialty department. It's growing by leaps and bounds. We have orthopedic surgeons. We have physicians assistants and nurse practitioners that work together to provide fracture care, trauma care, elective total joints. We also do some occupational medicine, some fracture liaison work. They provide a myriad of services to the community.
Prakash Chandran: Can you tell us about some of the most common things that people come to Champion Orthopedics for?
Denise Race, RN: One of our surgeons is a joint replacement specialist. He performs robotic joint replacements. And we also have a sports medicine physician that does a lot of the athletic sports injuries that we see throughout the community.
Prakash Chandran: I see, and I'd love to learn a little bit more about the patient experience when they come to see you at Gerald Champion. Is there an assessment period? Talk to us a little bit about what happens when the patient walks in the door.
Denise Race, RN: So when you schedule an appointment at Champion Orthopedics, you enter our new beautiful pavilion. We're on the third floor. And once they get here, we have a state-of-the-art x-ray machine. We perform our own digital x-rays. So, many times, they're brought in, an assessment is done by a nurse or a nursing assistant, and then they are sent off for their x-rays within our department. Once those x-rays are complete, the physician or the physician's assistant comes in and does an assessment of whatever their chief complaint is. Once that assessment is done and they review the x-rays with the patient, they can come up with a plan for improvement or treatment.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that sounds amazing. I also see here that you do full hip and knee replacement. Is that something that you can speak to?
Denise Race, RN: Yes, sir. So we do total hip replacements. We do total knee replacements. We do partial knee replacements. We do total shoulder replacements and total wrist replacements.
Prakash Chandran: Wow. That sounds very comprehensive. I mean, tell me it's interesting that in Alamogordo, you have this type of comprehensive care. Can you talk to what makes Champion Orthopedics different than some of the other orthopedic care in the broader New Mexico area?
Denise Race, RN: Champion Orthopedics has very specialized physicians. Their background and their training has brought them to the forefront of treating traumas and elective types of procedures. I think Gerald Champion is always focused on the latest and greatest ways of helping people and making them recover quicker. So approximately three years ago, we brought in the Mako robotic system to help with the total knee and total hip replacements. And with the Mako, the recovery is faster, the pain is less. It's just a much smoother, more customizable procedure for the patients. Our outcomes are really outstanding.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, I've heard that robotic surgery is the future. And I know that's sometimes referred to as minimally invasive. Can you just speak though broadly about how robotic surgery works? Because one fear that I've heard is that people don't want necessarily a robot operating on them. So can you talk tactically about how the doctor and the robot work together?
Denise Race, RN: So in orthopedics, the robot does not perform the procedure as it does when they're using other robotic systems. In orthopedics, what happens is the doctor gets a CAT scan prior to the procedure of the joint that he's going to replace. That CAT scan is loaded up into the robot and the orthopedic surgeon and the product specialist for the robot sit down about two weeks before surgery, and they prefab and put in all the calculations of all the different measurements that they feel the patient needs for replacement. Once they actually get into the operating suite, the robot holds the saw, the doctor is still performing the procedure. But instead of doing it by side, two-view, front and back, side to side, the doctor can now use the CAT scan, a three-dimensional view of the joint and actually do a comprehensive joint replacement based on what the patient specifically needs versus what a standard joint replacement would be. It's more patient-specific. You don't take off as much bone, more customizable to the patient themselves.
Prakash Chandran: That sounds incredible. And, you know, I know that high quality care is an important tenet at champion orthopedics. And I think a big part of this is just making sure that there's an accurate diagnosis in the beginning and then developing the right treatment plan. Can you just talk in a little bit more detail about why you all consider that important and how that interweaves into high quality care?
Denise Race, RN: One of our physicians who's been a surgeon for 30 plus years always says, "I can always operate, but I can never unoperate." So our theory is we treat each patient individually. We work the patient up. We offer other alternatives prior to surgery, such as therapy, injections, medications, things like that before we ever take them to the operating room. But when those things fail and we've tried everything that would help them before surgery, then surgery becomes the next step. So it's always easy to operate, but we're not into just operating. We want to make sure that we're assessing the patient, assessing their wants and needs and what they truly need and proceeding from there.
Prakash Chandran: And I think that's a really important point that you make, because I think sometimes when people come in to see, for example, an orthopedic clinic, like Champion Orthopedics, they think that they're reciting to surgery, when what you're saying is there's a whole assessment period and some physical therapy, everything is basically done to prevent getting on the operating table to make sure that there's no other option to healing naturally before surgery's actually considered. Is that correct?
Denise Race, RN: Exactly. We have a lot of patients that are afraid to come to a surgeon's office, because like you said, they just automatically think they're going to be in the operating room. That's not our goal. Our goal is to tell you what your options are to educate you, to make sure you can make an informed decision and then to help you get through that stage and determine if it was effective or not. If it wasn't effective, we give you another option. And then we have some people that they come in and say, "You know what? I've been dealing with this for so many years. I've done all these things. Nothing has worked," then yes, we're going to talk to you about, "Well, then surgery's your next option."
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, but a big piece of it, I feel like people fall back on just not coming in to get professional attention and help because they're so scared of surgery when, if they would just come in that they could be advised, for example, how to rehab something better that doesn't require surgery at all. So I think it's important just to have something looked at by a professional to really figure out the right treatment plan that is individualized for you.
Denise Race, RN: Well, and I totally agree with that. And you know, there is such a thing as letting something go too long. We can prevent a lot of bad things from happening, requiring further surgical intervention, if you just come in at the beginning so that we can try to fix the smaller problem first. And I think that people, especially with the pandemic and everything else, sometimes they're afraid to go to a physician's office. But you know, we're at that stage now with healthcare that, you know, we all mask and it's just really important to come in and make sure that you're being taken care of. You can't sit at home and try to treat yourself when it's not working any longer.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah. And I guess this is a related question, but at Champion Orthopedics and given all of your experience, what's one thing that you see all the time that you wish more patients knew before making the consideration to coming in?
Denise Race, RN: Well, I think a lot of times we have patients that come in because of trauma, they fall and they break their hips. And I don't know that people realize that, over the age of 65, one out of three people die within the first year from a broken hip. That can be prevented. And I think a lot of times they don't even think about the orthopedic surgeon can evaluate you and decide, you know, what muscles are weak, what therapy do you need? How can we keep you strong? How can we keep you from falling? And right now, and especially in this community, we have a lot of falls resulting in fractures. And I think it's really important that you assess your bone health and see a provider. If you feel like you're falling all the time or you're weak, or you don't have your strengths. We need to assess you so we can help you stay strong and prevent injury.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So just before we close here, is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience?
Denise Race, RN: I just want to share that you have the best physicians in the area. You have the best physicians at your disposal to help take care of all your orthopedic needs. And I think, you know, having care close to home where you don't have to travel is just a peace of mind for patients and their families. And I think sometimes people don't realize what services we can offer here in our community and at Gerald Champion.
Prakash Chandran: Well, Denise, I think that's the perfect place to end. Thank you so much for your time.
Denise Race, RN: Thank you.
Prakash Chandran: That was the Denise Race, the Director of the Orthopedic Service Line at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. For more information, you can call 575-437-1900. Thank you for listening to the Champions For Wellness podcast, local caregivers educating our community. If you've missed one of our podcasts, you can go to gcrmc.org/podcast. Thanks again for listening and we'll talk again soon.
Champion Orthopaedics
Prakash Chandran: Champion Orthopedics is proud to serve patients in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and surrounding communities, bringing patients latest advances in orthopedic care. They offer a full range of orthopedic treatment options, including joint replacement, sports medicine, fracture and trauma care, osteoporosis treatment, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. Joining us to discuss more about this is Denise Race, the Director of the Orthopedic Service Line at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center.
Welcome to the Champions for Wellness Podcast brought to you by the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. We believe knowledge is the key that opens the door to a healthy life. I'm your host, Prakash Chandran. Denise, thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. I wanted to get started by asking, tell us about some of the most common things that you do there at Gerald Champion.
Denise Race, RN: Well, I'm a nurse by trade. So on a day to day basis, I'm in charge of the operations of any patient that enters our facility that's going to have a myriad of orthopedic procedures or appointments done. I help coordinate all of their care and make sure that they have a seamless recovery if they do have a surgical procedure done.
Prakash Chandran: Okay. Great. And we're talking about Champion Orthopedics today. Tell us a little bit more about what that is and how that integrates with the rest of Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center.
Denise Race, RN: Well, Champion Orthopedics is a specialty department. It's growing by leaps and bounds. We have orthopedic surgeons. We have physicians assistants and nurse practitioners that work together to provide fracture care, trauma care, elective total joints. We also do some occupational medicine, some fracture liaison work. They provide a myriad of services to the community.
Prakash Chandran: Can you tell us about some of the most common things that people come to Champion Orthopedics for?
Denise Race, RN: One of our surgeons is a joint replacement specialist. He performs robotic joint replacements. And we also have a sports medicine physician that does a lot of the athletic sports injuries that we see throughout the community.
Prakash Chandran: I see, and I'd love to learn a little bit more about the patient experience when they come to see you at Gerald Champion. Is there an assessment period? Talk to us a little bit about what happens when the patient walks in the door.
Denise Race, RN: So when you schedule an appointment at Champion Orthopedics, you enter our new beautiful pavilion. We're on the third floor. And once they get here, we have a state-of-the-art x-ray machine. We perform our own digital x-rays. So, many times, they're brought in, an assessment is done by a nurse or a nursing assistant, and then they are sent off for their x-rays within our department. Once those x-rays are complete, the physician or the physician's assistant comes in and does an assessment of whatever their chief complaint is. Once that assessment is done and they review the x-rays with the patient, they can come up with a plan for improvement or treatment.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that sounds amazing. I also see here that you do full hip and knee replacement. Is that something that you can speak to?
Denise Race, RN: Yes, sir. So we do total hip replacements. We do total knee replacements. We do partial knee replacements. We do total shoulder replacements and total wrist replacements.
Prakash Chandran: Wow. That sounds very comprehensive. I mean, tell me it's interesting that in Alamogordo, you have this type of comprehensive care. Can you talk to what makes Champion Orthopedics different than some of the other orthopedic care in the broader New Mexico area?
Denise Race, RN: Champion Orthopedics has very specialized physicians. Their background and their training has brought them to the forefront of treating traumas and elective types of procedures. I think Gerald Champion is always focused on the latest and greatest ways of helping people and making them recover quicker. So approximately three years ago, we brought in the Mako robotic system to help with the total knee and total hip replacements. And with the Mako, the recovery is faster, the pain is less. It's just a much smoother, more customizable procedure for the patients. Our outcomes are really outstanding.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, I've heard that robotic surgery is the future. And I know that's sometimes referred to as minimally invasive. Can you just speak though broadly about how robotic surgery works? Because one fear that I've heard is that people don't want necessarily a robot operating on them. So can you talk tactically about how the doctor and the robot work together?
Denise Race, RN: So in orthopedics, the robot does not perform the procedure as it does when they're using other robotic systems. In orthopedics, what happens is the doctor gets a CAT scan prior to the procedure of the joint that he's going to replace. That CAT scan is loaded up into the robot and the orthopedic surgeon and the product specialist for the robot sit down about two weeks before surgery, and they prefab and put in all the calculations of all the different measurements that they feel the patient needs for replacement. Once they actually get into the operating suite, the robot holds the saw, the doctor is still performing the procedure. But instead of doing it by side, two-view, front and back, side to side, the doctor can now use the CAT scan, a three-dimensional view of the joint and actually do a comprehensive joint replacement based on what the patient specifically needs versus what a standard joint replacement would be. It's more patient-specific. You don't take off as much bone, more customizable to the patient themselves.
Prakash Chandran: That sounds incredible. And, you know, I know that high quality care is an important tenet at champion orthopedics. And I think a big part of this is just making sure that there's an accurate diagnosis in the beginning and then developing the right treatment plan. Can you just talk in a little bit more detail about why you all consider that important and how that interweaves into high quality care?
Denise Race, RN: One of our physicians who's been a surgeon for 30 plus years always says, "I can always operate, but I can never unoperate." So our theory is we treat each patient individually. We work the patient up. We offer other alternatives prior to surgery, such as therapy, injections, medications, things like that before we ever take them to the operating room. But when those things fail and we've tried everything that would help them before surgery, then surgery becomes the next step. So it's always easy to operate, but we're not into just operating. We want to make sure that we're assessing the patient, assessing their wants and needs and what they truly need and proceeding from there.
Prakash Chandran: And I think that's a really important point that you make, because I think sometimes when people come in to see, for example, an orthopedic clinic, like Champion Orthopedics, they think that they're reciting to surgery, when what you're saying is there's a whole assessment period and some physical therapy, everything is basically done to prevent getting on the operating table to make sure that there's no other option to healing naturally before surgery's actually considered. Is that correct?
Denise Race, RN: Exactly. We have a lot of patients that are afraid to come to a surgeon's office, because like you said, they just automatically think they're going to be in the operating room. That's not our goal. Our goal is to tell you what your options are to educate you, to make sure you can make an informed decision and then to help you get through that stage and determine if it was effective or not. If it wasn't effective, we give you another option. And then we have some people that they come in and say, "You know what? I've been dealing with this for so many years. I've done all these things. Nothing has worked," then yes, we're going to talk to you about, "Well, then surgery's your next option."
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, but a big piece of it, I feel like people fall back on just not coming in to get professional attention and help because they're so scared of surgery when, if they would just come in that they could be advised, for example, how to rehab something better that doesn't require surgery at all. So I think it's important just to have something looked at by a professional to really figure out the right treatment plan that is individualized for you.
Denise Race, RN: Well, and I totally agree with that. And you know, there is such a thing as letting something go too long. We can prevent a lot of bad things from happening, requiring further surgical intervention, if you just come in at the beginning so that we can try to fix the smaller problem first. And I think that people, especially with the pandemic and everything else, sometimes they're afraid to go to a physician's office. But you know, we're at that stage now with healthcare that, you know, we all mask and it's just really important to come in and make sure that you're being taken care of. You can't sit at home and try to treat yourself when it's not working any longer.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah. And I guess this is a related question, but at Champion Orthopedics and given all of your experience, what's one thing that you see all the time that you wish more patients knew before making the consideration to coming in?
Denise Race, RN: Well, I think a lot of times we have patients that come in because of trauma, they fall and they break their hips. And I don't know that people realize that, over the age of 65, one out of three people die within the first year from a broken hip. That can be prevented. And I think a lot of times they don't even think about the orthopedic surgeon can evaluate you and decide, you know, what muscles are weak, what therapy do you need? How can we keep you strong? How can we keep you from falling? And right now, and especially in this community, we have a lot of falls resulting in fractures. And I think it's really important that you assess your bone health and see a provider. If you feel like you're falling all the time or you're weak, or you don't have your strengths. We need to assess you so we can help you stay strong and prevent injury.
Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So just before we close here, is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience?
Denise Race, RN: I just want to share that you have the best physicians in the area. You have the best physicians at your disposal to help take care of all your orthopedic needs. And I think, you know, having care close to home where you don't have to travel is just a peace of mind for patients and their families. And I think sometimes people don't realize what services we can offer here in our community and at Gerald Champion.
Prakash Chandran: Well, Denise, I think that's the perfect place to end. Thank you so much for your time.
Denise Race, RN: Thank you.
Prakash Chandran: That was the Denise Race, the Director of the Orthopedic Service Line at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. For more information, you can call 575-437-1900. Thank you for listening to the Champions For Wellness podcast, local caregivers educating our community. If you've missed one of our podcasts, you can go to gcrmc.org/podcast. Thanks again for listening and we'll talk again soon.