Doctor reacts: Kris Jenner’s hip replacement surgery… did the mommager have the best?

Did you catch any of the recent episodes of the Kardashians on Hulu?

Bless her heart, Mrs. Kris Jenner had hip replacement surgery after a strong recommendation from Martha Stewart. While Mrs. Jenner is famous for being the mommager—a genius of social media and marketing—how well did she pick the surgeon when her own health was on the line?

In this blog I will break down Mrs. Jenner’s choice of orthopedic surgeon, the surgery itself, and answer frequently asked questions about hip replacement surgery.
I’m happy, but not surprised. More women than men end up getting total hip replacement, and Mrs. Jenner is 66—the average age of people having total hip replacement is 68. I’m also not surprised that she apparently did well with the surgery. After all, 90% of patients in the Australian registry of over 500K hip replacement patients report they are very or highly satisfied with total hip replacement surgery.

High patient satisfaction is almost certainly because of how reliably replacement surgery controls hip pain. In my centers we see very high levels of pain control after total hip replacement, with no patients typically reporting severe pain by 90 days.

I am probably the last person in America no have never seen the Kardashians reality TV show before now, and I have to say it seemed very brave of this family to put their experience out there on television where we can all learn from it. Let’s start with the surgeon, Jason Snibbe, MD.

If you subscribe to Best Practice Live, you know that in a typical community less than 10% of orthopedic surgeons meet our criteria to qualify as your surgeon. Here’s a checklist we use to help you have the best possible hip replacement experience:

For a copy of this checklist by text or email click here:

The doctor’s website indicates he is an orthopedic surgeon who completed a fellowship in Sports Medicine and Joint Replacement at the Kerland Jobe Clinic. Dr. Snibbe’s office told us he does the direct superior approach, which is minimally invasive. In the video they appear to be in an ASC. The direct superior approach implies he uses Stryker implants, which are registry proven.

Three stars for Dr. Snibbe.

Online ratings are more about the office than the doctor; however, you want to avoid the frustration of a good doctor with a bad office. Dr. Snibbe’s has a 4/5 rating on US NEWs and 4.3/5 on Healthgrades. Both are good compared to his peers. That is four stars for Snibbe.

Finally, in the video the Kardashians posted of Mrs. Jenner’s operation I can see the Mako robot. The use of a robotic assistant has been shown to substantially improve the accuracy of a surgeon’s cuts in bone, implant choice, and reduce complications. Five stars.

Nice! It looks like the Mommager choose well. I’m delighted. I know what it’s like to have adult children, and they can be a handful. Hip pain would just add insult to the injury.