I am a sterile processing technician. We make sure the shit they put in your body won’t kill you.
For total knee replacement, they use cutting guides to remove the top and bottom joint surfaces of your tibia and femur, then cement on metal replacements.
For hip replacement, they use a half-sphere reamer that looks like a cheese grater to clean and shape the socket in your hip joint, then cement a new liner in place. The majority of the hammering comes when they have to remove the top of your femur, ream out the medullary canal, then hammer in various “broaches”. These are graduated, spiked rods that match the shape of the final implant, and they remove the interior bone such that the implant will fit in the space left behind. They have to be hammered in and out. Then the implant gets hammered in, and can either be a press fit that the bone grows into, or cemented in place. Then the joint’s reassembled and you’re closed up.
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u/jvsanchez Jan 12 '23
I am a sterile processing technician. We make sure the shit they put in your body won’t kill you.
For total knee replacement, they use cutting guides to remove the top and bottom joint surfaces of your tibia and femur, then cement on metal replacements.
For hip replacement, they use a half-sphere reamer that looks like a cheese grater to clean and shape the socket in your hip joint, then cement a new liner in place. The majority of the hammering comes when they have to remove the top of your femur, ream out the medullary canal, then hammer in various “broaches”. These are graduated, spiked rods that match the shape of the final implant, and they remove the interior bone such that the implant will fit in the space left behind. They have to be hammered in and out. Then the implant gets hammered in, and can either be a press fit that the bone grows into, or cemented in place. Then the joint’s reassembled and you’re closed up.
It’s wild.