By Linda Satter

LITTLE ROCK — Simon Mears, M.D., Ph.D., a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon specializing in hip and knee joint-related conditions, has returned to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) after a year in an endowed professorship in orthopaedics at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Mears specializes in hip and knee replacement surgery and taking care of patients with complex joint problems such as periprosthetic fractures, revisions and infections.

“We are ecstatic that Dr. Mears has returned to the UAMS Department of Orthopaedic Surgery,” said C. Lowry Barnes, M.D., professor and chair of the department. “He is an outstanding joint replacement surgeon and a leader at the campus level for quality and safety. In addition, he is a nationally recognized researcher in hip and knee replacement.”

Hip, Knee Specialist Simon Mears, M.D., Ph.D., Returns to UAMS Department of Orthopaedic Surgery

By Linda Satter

Just two and a half weeks after Thomas Frazier, M.D., underwent a total knee replacement as the first surgical patient at The Orthopaedic & Spine Hospital at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), he was back to seeing patients in his orthopaedic clinic.

By the third week, he was performing surgery at the very hospital where he was treated.

The UAMS orthopaedic hand surgeon acknowledged that if he wasn’t able to perform surgery while seated, it probably would have taken another two or three weeks before he was back at the operating table.

Still, the degree of improvement he experienced in such a short time was a testament to the confidence he asserted weeks earlier, when he offered to be the first surgical patient at the new facility.

https://news.uams.edu/2023/08/11/uams-hand-surgeon-becomes-first-surgical-patient-at-the-orthopaedic-spine-hospital/