Dr. Thomas Gross is a specialist in joint replacement
surgery of the hip and knee. He has been in private practice in
Columbia, South Carolina with Midlands Orthopaedics, a premier group of
orthopaedic subspecialists, since 1994.
He attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University, and completed
his orthopaedic surgery residency there as well. During ten years at
America's most renowned medical training centers, he was able to learn
from some of the world's leaders in medicine, surgery and especially
joint replacement. Under the influence of experts such as Drs. Brooker,
Riley, Krackow and Hungerford, he began developing an interest in
complex joint reconstruction and joint implant design.
He further honed these skills and became expert in custom implant design
during fellowship training with one of the world's foremost experts in
custom implants and surgical robotics, Dr. William Bargar, Sacramento,
California.
Since 1994 in Columbia, South Carolina, he has developed first a
regional and now a national referral practice of complex joint
reconstruction problems. In addition to routine hip and knee
replacement surgery, his interests include:
- Minimally invasive hip and knee surgery
- Custom implants
- Unicompartmental knee replacement
- Large bearing metal-on-metal hip replacements
- Uncemented total knee replacement
- Femoroacetabular Hip Impingement
He has become one of the national leaders in developing
metal-on-metal hip surface replacement. This is a durable solution for
the young, highly active, patient, who wants to avoid the bone loss and
limitations inherent in standard total hip replacement. He first
performed this procedure in July of 1999. Since then he has led a
multi-center FDA Study with CORIN to bring this procedure to the United
States. This study was submitted in March of 2005. The implant was
approved for sale in the USA in July 2007.
During this time he has refined the procedure, which was developed in
England. He is now able to routinely perform this operation using a
minimally invasive approach through a four-inch incision. He has
performed over 1300 of these operations with patients traveling from all
over the country and several from overseas for this procedure.
He has also developed a technique for minimally invasive Total Hip
Replacement through a single three inch posterior approach (four inch
for most Total Hip Resurfacings), which has been safely performed on
hundreds of patients since 2001. With minimally invasive techniques and
a comprehensive multimodality pain management system, most hip
replacement surgery now only requires a single night’s stay in the
hospital.
For the last five years, he has worked with BIOMET to design and develop
a new and improved Metal-on-Metal Hip Surface Replacement System as well
as a Large Bearing Total Hip Replacement System. The BIOMET Recap
Femoral and Magnum Acetabular System as well as the Magnum Large Bearing
Femoral Head for Stemmed Total Hip Replacement were cleared by the FDA
and released for sale in the United States in December 2004. In the
U.S. use of the Recap Femoral component together with the Magnum
Acetabular component for a Total Hip Resurfacing Procedure constitutes
an off-label use. (This is legal: It is up to the surgeon to decide
how he wishes to use these implants). In the remainder of the world,
total resurfacing faces no restrictions, and BIOMET can market the Recap
and Magnum as total hip resurfacing devices. Because of our FDA, this
country is probably the only one where is it difficult to get a total
hip resurfacing done.
The new BIOMET implant was designed to my specifications. There have
been numerous improvements made over previous implants. Primarily, the
instrumentation has been improved to allow the surgeon to more
accurately and reproducibly prepare the bone for the implant. The
implants are thinner than all others on the market. They are also
supplied in 2 mm. increments to allow very accurate matching of the
implants to the patient’s actual size. We now have available the first
porous coated, uncemented femoral component (implantation began in the
US in April 2007).
Other areas of development include a large bearing
metal-on-metal acetabular component system for severe dysplasia and
revision Total Hip Replacement as well as an uncemented mobile bearing
Total Knee Replacement System coupled with minimally invasive
instrumentation and surgical navigation. However, it may be years
before these become available.
Educational Background
Undergraduate
University of Southern California
University of the Pacific, June 1981
Medical
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
1981 - 1985
Internship
Johns Hopkins University Department of Surgery
July 1985 - July 1986
Residency
Johns Hopkins University Department of Surgery
July 1986 - July 1987
Johns Hopkins University Department of Orthopaedics
July 1987 - July 1991
Fellowship
Joint Reconstructive Surgery Fellowship with Dr. William Bargar
Sacramento, California
August 1991 - July 1992
Affiliations
Hospitals
Providence Hospital Northeast, Columbia, South Carolina
Palmetto Baptist Medical Center, Columbia, South Carolina
National Society Memberships
Fellow, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
March 10, 1998
American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery
Board Certified, July 11, 1996
American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons - 2006
State Society Memberships
South Carolina Orthopaedic Association
