Jonathon Lindner, MD, orthopedic surgeon at Baptist Health Louisville, recalls his transformative moment
LOUISVILLE It’s known as the “Aha! moment,” when the human brain suddenly realigns a set of facts into a new paradigm that produces clarity, motivation, determination, relief, confidence, even joy.
In previous generations, it was called “the light bulb moment,” borrowing the sensation of sudden illumination that transforms the dark unknown into the bright and clear known.
Jonathon Lindner, MD, orthopedic surgeon at Baptist Health Louisville recalls his “Aha! moment” vividly.
“While I was playing football and lacrosse at Saint Xavier High School, in Louisville, there was a pre-med club with a mentor who was an orthopedic surgeon and St. X alum. With permission slips from our parents, he took us to Norton Audubon on a Saturday afternoon. We got to go into the operating room where there was a cadaver knee and a cadaver hand. We were given the opportunity to help perform a knee replacement on a cadaver knee and then dissect, and look at all the anatomy in a human hand. It was on that day, sophomore year of high school, that I said, ‘Yes, this is what I want to do for a living.’”
Lindner continues, “I honestly don’t know who the surgeon was. He’s probably retired by now, because it would have been 2005. I’ve actually thought about it quite often.”
Lindner went on to receive his BS and MS degrees in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan and his medical degree and orthopedic residency at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in adult knee and hip reconstruction at the Baptist Health Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute.
Upon returning to Louisville in 2021, Lindner joined Baptist Health where he holds clinics and performs adult joint replacement surgery three days a week in LaGrange, Kentucky, and two days a week in New Albany, Indiana.
Part of a family well-versed in medicine, Lindner is married to Krista, who is a retired OR nurse. His father, Robert Lindner, MD, was a urologist at First Urology. His mother Cheryl was also an OR nurse and is now retired.
The Rural & Small Market Orthopedic Practice
With the evolution of outpatient orthopedic surgery, more patients are being treated in smaller locales, close to their rural homes, away from the large metropolitan healthcare centers. Lindner sees this as an advantage to both patient and physicians.
“I think there’s less hustle and bustle coming to a smaller facility. The patients get to spend more time with you and it’s more personalized, for me and my nursing staff,” says Lindner.
The majority of Lindner’s patients are between the ages of 50 and 80, and are experiencing knee or hip joint related issues, such as pain and arthritis. He also sees a wide spectrum of acute knee and hip injuries all the way to end stage debilitating osteoarthritis.
Obesity, smoking, and diabetes are common comorbidities in the adult joint replacement patient population, particularly in rural areas such as Southern Indiana and LaGrange. Addressing those factors are important to Lindner in pre-op discussions and planning.
“We try to get their BMI at least below 45 and ideally below 40. In terms of diabetes, their A1c is ideally to be below 8, proving that at least they’re taking their glycemic index seriously and to quit smoking. Most studies in orthopedics show that the three biggest risk factors for infection and poor surgical outcome after hip and knee replacement are smoking, diabetes and obesity. We try to get these patients to control what they can control, so that they have as good an outcome following surgery as possible,” says Lindner.
Knee and Hip Replacement Surgery
Lindner says that he primarily uses the anterior approach for hip replacement surgery since he estimates about 95% of the hip replacements he did in fellowship were with the anterior approach.
“The anterior approach has been around for 15 or 20 years. It’s taken a long time for widespread acceptance as surgeons learned a new way to do things. Most of the people coming out of fellowships now, the younger, newer generation of knee and hip surgeons, are doing the anterior approach.”
The hip and knee replacement systems preferred by Lindner are made by Smith & Nephew because he says “they make a hypoallergenic femoral component for total knees and a hypoallergenic femoral head for hip replacement made of oxinium. Most joint replacements have a cobalt chrome bearing surface which has nickel in it. Right now, Smith & Nephew is the only company that utilizes oxinium, and it’s the only hip and knee replacement that does not have nickel in it. So, for patients that are nickel sensitive or have nickel allergy, that’s obviously the advantage.”
Talking and Listening to the Patient
“I primarily see two conditions, knee pain and hip pain. So, it’s a pretty streamlined process. I have a set of questions that I ask patients. I have a set of different treatment
options available, and I help them come up with a treatment plan that’s best for them. It’s talking, really talking to the patient, figuring out what it is that they’re trying to get back to? Are they trying to run marathons or are they trying to just mosey around the house? Coming up with an understanding of what the patient’s expectations are, where they are right now in their treatment algorithm, how much pain they’re in, and what they’re willing to try next,” says Lindner.
Listening to a patient and receiving their feedback sometimes come with a big dose of gratitude and some tears. Lindner recalls a recent 50-year-old female patient who had severe avascular necrosis of her femoral head. “She couldn’t work. She was going on permanent disability. She was in a wheelchair. She had no quality of life whatsoever. She wasn’t able to do the things that she wanted to do. She was just absolutely miserable, and had almost essentially given up.
“We scheduled her for a hip replacement. She came back to see me at the two-week follow up and was actually crying in the office because she was walking pain free for the first time in probably two to three years. And she thanked me profusely. She said ‘You changed my life, you saved my life.’
“I actually just saw her for her two-year visit. She was on the verge of permanent disability, and now she’s working full time. She’s doing the things that she wants to do, and that’s what drives me, really changing somebody’s life like that. You take somebody who can’t do anything, they’re just absolutely miserable, and you put them through a 45-minute surgery, and you change their life forever.”
Just like the orthopedic surgeon, the St. X alum, changed Jonathon Lindner’s life 20+ years ago. Dr. Jonathon Lindner would like to know who you were and wants to thank you for changing his life.