(1911 - 1982)

British Orthopaedic Surgeon

Sir John Charnley FRS was a British orthopaedic surgeon. He pioneered the hip replacement operation, which is now one of the most common operations both in the UK and elsewhere in the world, and created the "Wrightington centre for hip surgery".

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He also demonstrated the fundamental importance of bony compression in operations to fuse joints, in particular the knee, ankle and shoulder.

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Charnley also influenced generations of orthopaedic surgeons through his textbook on fracture treatment which was first published in 1950.

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Charnley designed the first hip joint and in 1962 performed the first successful hip-replacement operation. His design used a femoral stem and ball made of steel and a hip socket made of Teflon, glued together using acrylic bone cement. Many improvements have been made since but Charnley set the standard and today 80,000 hip replacements are performed in Britain each year.

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Hip replacement is a surgical procedure in which the hip joint is replaced by a prosthetic implant. Hip replacement surgery can be performed as a total replacement or a half replacement. Joint replacement orthopaedic surgery is generally conducted to relieve arthritis pain or in some hip fractures. A total hip replacement consists of replacing both the concave surface of the pelvis and the femoral head while half replacement generally only replaces the femoral head. Hip replacement is currently the most common orthopaedic operation.

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John Charnley is recognised as the founder of modern hip replacement. His contributions to the field are found in the hip replacement surgery method, in the optimization of the surgery flows and in the drastic infection rate decrease. Through his teaching activities, he transmitted his technique and knowledge to a wide audience of international surgeons and his academic and scientific work spread worldwide. Many of his students are still teaching hip replacement.

Sports people can nowadays push themselves as hard as they like without worrying, because their bones can just be replaced because of this gentleman.

Source: Wikipedia

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Total Hip Replacement

Post surgery X Ray

Photo: KimvdLinde • Licensed for reuse under CC BY-SA 3.0