Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Consult us before having your toe, foot or leg amputated!



Limb salvage is a very difficult and tricky thing to achieve.

We have had wonderful success in saving feet and healing wounds.

There have been plenty of situations where the patient was advised to have an amputation and we have been able to save them from that or at least minimize the loss.

It takes a full team and we have that available here at Hoag hospital in Orange County California.

Salvage is more time consuming and more expensive than an amputation. In the long run it is more worth it to keep your foot/leg. Your life expectancy decreases with a below knee amputation. Getting fitted for a prosthesis is not cheap either.

If there is a chance that something can be done, I will do it.

I've used lots of modalities and technology to heal wounds and prevent amputation.

I'll show some of the worst cases and the results we can get. There are more pictures on my website.


Case 1 is a young male with history of Diabetes. Necrotizing Fasciitis. Multiple surgeries were done. During the healing process patient ended up needing his 3rd toe amputated due to gangrene. Once complete gangrene sets in, there is nothing that we can do other than amputate.





After multiple surgeries and the use of Wound VAC



A very healthy granular bed that is ready for a skin graft.



A few days after skin graft placement. The graft has taken.






All wounds are almost fully closed. The last part is closing and we expect it to be fully closed in a few weeks.













Case 2. Large necrotic wound on the bottom of the foot. The top picture is after the first surgical debridement. Skin grafting and wound vac therapy allowed this to heal.










Feel free to contact Dr. Kolodenker for a consultation. 

(949) 651-1202

Orange County - Irvine, California



















Monday, July 13, 2015

Marketing Yourself in a Medical Private Practice




They don't teach you in residency the business of running a medical practice. They especially don't teach you on how to get new patients.

Most doctors think that they will start working on this when they are out of residency. BIG MISTAKE.

Start now!!!

The main way patients will find you or at least find out about you is online. Even if their primary doctor recommends you, they will google you.

Google yourself, see what comes up.

Create a website that is pertinent to your specialty. Do not worry so much about the SEO of it at this point. If you know where you will plan on practicing build the site tailored to that.

Have a professional facebook page.

Have a LinkedIn account.

Have a HealthGrades Page.

Have a YouTube Page. This is extremely helpful.

All these things will make you even more marketable.

For the doctors that want the freedom of a solo practice or small practice setting, you need these skills. If you don't have them, pay someone to do it for you or at least advise you.


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

All the negative posts about foot surgery

The most common thing I hear from patients after surgery is their amazement of the negative, horror stories that are written online about various foot surgeries.

My belief is that most people have great results after foot surgery. The things that are written online are rare case scenarios. Majority of patients that have great and good outcomes from surgery will not take the time to write their hearts out in a blog. People that do well move on with their lives.

The negative blogs are a way for people to share their feeling, find some answers and in a way try and help other people. I think it's great to second guess having surgery. Though the results are usually very good, they are not 100%.

You don't know what the underlying medical condition is present with the patient that writes a negative blog. Perhaps they can not take any pain medication or their pain threshold is much lower than yours.

Do your research and find a doctor you are comfortable with and will go over the common complications that can occur with whatever surgery you might be having.

If it is something foot or ankle related, feel free to ask on this blog and I'll do my best to get you an answer.

Contact Dr. Kolodenker