What Does Our Tagline Mean? "Innovative Medicine - Old-Fashioned Care"

“Innovative Medicine, Old fashioned Care”

That is the tagline for Nucci Medical. Is it just a nice saying or does it reflect a difference in medical treatment at Nucci Medical? I think the latter and I’ll explain why.

Old-Fashioned Care Let me discuss “old fashioned care” first. When I thought of this tagline, I was trying to come up with something that embodies what we do here. The term "old-fashioned" does not mean we use just old fashioned techniques to treat patients. But rather we approach patients the way physicians used to treat patients back in the day. I know firsthand what this means because both of my parents were physicians. My father was also an orthopedic surgeon. I saw how my parents treated patients and the time and care they took in everything they did. Putting the patient first was not something they just said. In fact, it was never something they had to say. It went without question that a physician would do everything they could to make a patient better. Other considerations were a distant second. They worked hard and did what they did for the love of medicine and their patients. We take that philosophy seriously at Nucci Medical.

Nucci Medical's Citrus Park Surgery Center:

At Nucci Medical the physician sees the patient each and every time. EVERY TIME! Patients are not seen only by a nurse, physician's assistant or medical assistant. Always by the doctor. Always, and every time. In some other practices, patients are screened for surgery by an assistant and then only see the doctor if they need surgery. At Nucci Medical, the physician establishes a doctor-patient relationship from the very first visit and if something can be treated surgically the decision is made with both doctor and patient input from the start. This is just good medicine. Any other way is a shortcut that can lead down the wrong path. My parents would never conceive of anyone else seeing a patient in their office besides them. And neither do the doctors at Nucci Medical. We talk to our patient, we listen to our patients, we explain things to our patients and we take their concerns seriously. Together we determine the best course of treatment to get them back where they want to be. And that’s what I mean by “old fashioned care”.

Innovative Medicine So what about “Innovative Medicine? I believe that patients want the best and latest advancements in treatment, but also want to be offered procedures and techniques that work. You don’t want your doctor to offer outdated techniques when more modern techniques work better. You also don’t want your doctor to try things that have not been shown to work. At Nucci Medical we look for a balance of the newest techniques but keep in mind the traditional surgical procedures that have been proven over time. Together with the patient, we choose the best treatment options. Here are a few examples over the years:

Nucci Medical was one of the first practices in the United States to do outpatient spine reconstructive surgery. It is now common but we did this 12 years ago, long before it was common. We developed the techniques and the protocols so outpatient reconstructive spine surgery could be done safely. By "reconstructive" I mean with instrumentation like a fusion or disc replacement. We are happy that others caught on to the benefit of patients everywhere. Similarly, we were one of the first to perform a cervical disk replacement in Florida over 15 years ago. Now that too is common.

So with these 2 examples I think you can see that at Nucci Medical we recognize new techniques and help to advance surgical procedures to help patients. On the other hand, innovation is tempered with experience at Nucci Medical. Just because something is new does not mean it is beneficial. More often than not, Nucci Medical physicians will evaluate a supposedly "new and innovative technique" and not implement it.

A good example would be IDET from several years ago. IDET involved heating up a lumbar disk to make it stronger, sort of like cooking an egg to make it more solid. The idea was that it would help disk tears and improve low back pain. Did not work. No surprise to a physician who knows the anatomy of a lumbar disk. The lumbar disk has fibers in it that resemble a radial tire’s interlocking fibers. In a radial tire, these interlocking fibers keep a tire strong and able to deal with the stresses of the road. You don’t treat a hole in flat tire by melting the tire and you don’t treat low back pain by cooking a disk. So to any trained spine surgeon, it was no surprise that it did not work. A well-trained physician would know this and be skeptical before they offered it to patients. We were skeptical and we were right. IDET never became an established technique at Nucci Medical.

Innovative medicine means we offer our patients the most innovative techniques that have proven value and not just offer it because it is new. The right procedure, the right informed patient and the right doctor. This is the philosophy of Nucci Medical. In a phrase “Innovative Medical, Old Fashioned Care”.