The spine turf wars
Medicine is called a 'profession' but routinely employs the tactics made fanmous by the cosa nostra, believe it or not. The face of modern medicine with its welathy hospital corporations and their jet flying executives are a far cry from the initial interaction between Hippocrates and his first patient in some sunnt Greek garden where the sacred pact between the healer and potentially healed was formed.
Western medicine coincided with the expolsion of professional ego and from tha t point on the innocence of the healing arts began its downward trajectory. Throughout the last two hundred years there have been numerous 'turf' battles between the various medical specialities with the majority occurring in the last thirty years as medicine became increasingly specialised. This rather tawdry aspect of medicine has been litle known to the public and has unfortunately been exploited by the trial attorneys mostly in the US.
The most recent and arguably one of the ferocious turf battles has been in the field of spine and has lasted from 1999-2014 with the most recent and probably defining battle being that of the case of Dr.Richard Kaul V The New Jersey Medical Board. The case attracted an enormous amount of press attention , all of which can be simply googled on the internet with the simple moniker-The Spine Turf Wars- but what majes this particular battle so memorable is the direct involvement of the now well recognised New Jersey governor Chris Christie whose allegedly corrupt activities forced the medical board to suspend the medical license of minimally invasive spine pioneer Dr.Richard Kaul. DR. Kaul had , in 2005 , been the first physician to successfully perform a minimally invasive outpatient lumbar fusion, aprocedure which revolutionised the field of spine surgery and set the standard, that is now routinely employed, of performing spine cases in the outpatient setting.
Below are included several links to the press that covered this very historic piece of medical history:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orthopedics-this-week-story-highlights-quickening-turf-war-of-minimally-invasive-spine-procedures-205467531.html
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/governor-christies-state-of-new-jersey-continues-to-be-the-frontline-for-the-spine-turf-wars-213115111.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Hr2PgggUM
https://plus.google.com/+RichardKaul/posts/V4T77Zjd5K8
