Referring.
Send referrals to the rooms by secure messaging, fax or email to reception@scorthogroup.com.au. The rooms contact the patient within two business days and offer an appointment within four weeks. Mark the referral urgent if it needs to be sooner and it will be triaged accordingly.
The rooms are booked on (07) 5493 8038. If a particular location suits your patient, say so on the referral and it will be honoured where the list allows.
Scope, stated plainly.
Professor Rodda's practice is focused on hip and knee replacement. He does not perform arthroscopy, osteotomy, joint preservation surgery or soft tissue knee reconstruction, and he does not operate on any other joint.
Shoulder, elbow, hand, wrist, foot, ankle, spine and paediatric referrals are best directed to colleagues within Sunshine Coast Orthopaedic Group. Anything sent here is redirected rather than absorbed, but it costs your patient a wait, so it is worth checking first.
What makes a referral useful.
Four things, in order of how much difference they make.
- Weight-bearing imaging. For the knee: a standing anteroposterior view, a standing posteroanterior view with the knee flexed (Rosenberg), a lateral and a skyline. For the hip: a standing pelvis film. Non-weight-bearing films systematically under-call joint space loss, and a knee series without a skyline can miss patellofemoral disease entirely.
- The functional limitation, not only the pain score. What the patient has stopped doing is the single most useful line in a referral, and it is the line that most often decides whether an operation is appropriate.
- What has been tried, and for how long. Physiotherapy, GLA:D, weight management, analgesia, injections, and the response to each. A knee that has had no structured strengthening has not yet been treated.
- The medical picture. Comorbidities, anticoagulation, diabetes control and HbA1c, BMI, smoking status, and any history of joint infection.
An MRI is usually not required for straightforward arthritis and can be actively misleading: degenerate meniscal tears are found in a large proportion of middle-aged knees, including knees that do not hurt, and that finding then competes with the arthritis for the diagnosis.
The nurse practitioner pathway.
Where a patient needs assessment and non-operative management rather than a surgical opinion, the practice nurse practitioner can see them sooner and at lower cost, arrange imaging, begin treatment, and refer on if surgery becomes appropriate. For patients who are not yet surgical candidates this is frequently the better appointment, and it does not consume a surgical slot.
Red flags worth calling about.
Call the rooms directly rather than referring in writing if you are seeing:
- A hot, swollen, painful joint replacement, with or without systemic features. Suspected prosthetic joint infection is urgent and should not wait for an outpatient appointment. Where possible, avoid starting antibiotics before the joint has been aspirated, because it compromises the culture.
- A periprosthetic fracture, or a joint replacement that has become acutely unable to weight bear.
- Rapidly progressive destruction on imaging, or unexplained bone loss.
- Suspected avascular necrosis before collapse, where timing genuinely changes the options.
What you get back, and when.
A letter after the first consultation setting out the assessment, the imaging findings, the plan and the reasoning, including where the plan is not to operate. An operation record after surgery. A letter after each milestone review.
If your patient is having surgery, the discharge summary and the rehabilitation plan come to you, and the written physiotherapy protocol goes to whichever practice they have chosen. Post-operative wound care and routine analgesia are covered in that correspondence.
Shared care after a joint replacement.
Three things GPs are most often asked about afterwards, answered here so you do not have to call:
- Antibiotic prophylaxis for dental work. Australian guidance does not support routine prophylaxis before dental procedures for most patients with a joint replacement. Active dental infection is a different matter and should be treated.
- Thromboprophylaxis. The regimen and duration are specified in the discharge summary and are patient-specific.
- New pain in a previously comfortable joint replacement, particularly groin or thigh pain on initiating gait, warrants an X-ray and a call rather than watchful waiting.
Patients who are not ready.
Referring early is not a problem and a consultation that concludes "not yet" is a useful consultation: the patient leaves with a plan, a baseline Oxford score and an understanding of what would change the answer. What does cost them is being referred for an operation this practice does not perform.
Written, procedure-specific rehabilitation protocols are available on request, and the physiotherapist page carries the clinical milestones.
This page provides general information about a medical condition and a surgical procedure. It is not individual medical advice and does not replace consultation with a qualified practitioner. Outcomes vary between individuals and all surgery carries risk. A referral is needed for a consultation with Professor Daevyd Rodda; without one, you can start with the practice nurse practitioner, who can provide it.