The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

Dr. Bertrand Tamalet is an orthopedist who knows what kind of surgery Reid received 30 years earlier. That surgery, which used a screw to hold a joint in place, was invented by the French orthopedic surgeon Dr. Maurice Latarjet. However, in the US, the surgery is identified as the Bristow procedure, after the surgeon and orthopedist who popularized it there. It was also a French orthopedist, Dr. Jules Émile Péan, “who implanted the world’s first man-made joint” in March 1892 (47). To save the shoulder of a patient with “a severe infection due to tuberculosis” who also refused amputation, Péan came up with the idea of installing an artificial joint instead. The surgery was a success. Later, the artificial shoulder was donated to the Smithsonian and is now on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

It was Dr. Tamalet who related this story to Reid. He then charged Reid $33.80 for the consultation—a predetermined fee that insurance would reimburse at around 70%. Not everyone pays the predetermined fee in full. The poor and those on welfare are billed about a quarter of the regular cost of treatment. The poorest patients and those suffering from chronic illnesses pay nothing.