Caring for your teeth and gums is important in the long-term maintenance and preservation of your smile and your mouth. At Kamloops Surgical Centre, our team of Dentists offers preventive and restorative dental care.

• Extractions

• Restorations

Our team of highly trained and experienced General Surgeons provides a variety of investigative and reparative procedures required to prevent, detect and manage:

• Colon Cancer

• Gastrointestinal Diseases

• Hernia conditions

Our team provides Neurosurgery options for Worksafe BC, talk to your family doctor and/or caseworker about having your surgery completed at the Kamloops Surgical Centre.

Our facility specializes in cataract surgery, which is a procedure to remove the lens of your eye and, in most cases, replace it with an artificial lens. Normally, the lens of your eye is clear. A cataract causes the lens to become cloudy, which eventually affects your vision.

This surgery is completed on an outpatient basis, which means your stay at the Centre is brief, typically completed within a few hours. Cataract surgery is very common and is generally a safe procedure

Our Orthopaedic Surgical services focus on the health of bones, muscles and joints. We focus on the preservation and restoration of the skeletal system in order to maintain or improve the activity level of our clients. Our Orthopaedic Surgeons and team of highly skilled operating room and recovery room nurses provide a team approach to offering the most commonly requested orthopaedic and sport injury procedures.

Arthroscopic Surgery for Knee, Ankle, Hip, Shoulder, Elbow or Wrist

Arthroscopic surgery allows our Surgeons to access joints using very small puncture wounds or incisions and a small scope, smaller than a pen, to visualize and access the inside of the joint to diagnose and treat these joint problems. Using equally small instruments, surgeons are able to remove damage, clean up and debride damaged joints as well as reconstruct damaged structures such as ligaments. By doing the surgery through small puncture wounds instead of through larger incisions, patients experience a more rapid return to improved joint function. Most of these arthroscopic procedures can be done on a Day Care basis preventing patients from having to remain overnight.

Knee Ligament Reconstruction: Anterior Cruciate Ligament

The Anterior Cruciate Ligament is a major stabilizing ligament within the knee that is frequently injured, often through sports that involve jumping and landing or twisting and pivoting activities. It can be successfully reconstructed using graphs from the hamstring tendon, middle third patellar tendon or from tissue donation. The procedure is intended to replace the damaged ligament and restore stability and function to the knee.

This procedure is done through very small incisions and can most often be done on a Day Care basis.

Knee Ligament Reconstruction: Posterior Cruciate Ligament

The Posterior Cruciate Ligament is an infrequently injured major ligament in the knee. Damage to this ligament can cause symptomatic instability and in some cases, reconstruction is recommended. This arthroscopic procedure uses grafts from either a hamstring tendon, a middle third of the patellar tendon or from tissue donation. The choice of graft can be discussed with your surgeon and can be individually tailored to your needs.

Making just small incisions in the knee area and using an arthroscope to guide the work done within the knee joint itself, this procedure is routinely completed on a Day Care basis.

Cartilage Resurfacing – Allograft and Autograft

There are times when the articular cartilage can be damaged to the point that instability, catching, locking and clicking occurs. If this is happening, there are a variety of procedures which allow the articular cartilage to be resurfaced using either the patient’s tissue (Autograft) or donated tissue (Allograft). Determining which type of graft tissue is best is done on an individual basis in consultation with the Orthopaedic Surgeon.

Some of these procedures can be done as Day Care procedures while others will require a short hospital stay.

In many cases these procedures can be done arthroscopicaly and performed on a day-surgery basis. However, depending on the amount of damage, cartilage resurfacing may require an overnight stay.

Meniscal Repair

The meniscus cartilage, a fibrous shock absorbing cartilage within the knee joint, can be is injured while doing either sport or work related activities. In some cases the meniscus is healthy enough to be repaired by placing stitches or small absorbable fixation devices within the meniscus to hold it in position while it heals on its own. By retaining the meniscus within the knee it supports better long term function and significantly reduces the risk of late wear and tear or osteoarthritis.

Meniscal repair can be done as an arthroscopic procedure using very small punctures or incisions and a scope, smaller than a pen, to visualize and access the meniscus cartilage inside the knee. This minimally invasive procedure can be done on a day-surgery basis however it does require a post operative period of limited mobility and limited weight bearing to allow the meniscus to heal.

By retaining the meniscus within the knee by repair this allows better long term function of the knee and significantly reduces the risk of late wear and tear or osteoarthritis.

Meniscal Allograft Transplantation

The meniscus cartilage within the knee can be damaged to the point where the damaged cartilage needs to be removed. In some cases this requires almost complete removal of the meniscus. However, this often results in symptoms of knee pain related to the loss of that meniscus. In very select cases, Orthopaedic surgeons are able to transplant a meniscus from a cadaver knee offering a successful alternative that in the long term can decrease pain, improve function and decrease the risk of long term wear and tear or osteoarthritis in the knee.

This procedure can be done arthroscopically on an extended day-surgery basis.

Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair

The rotator cuff is a series of tendons formed by four muscle tendons which surround the upper part of the humerus at the shoulder joint and act to stabilize that joint during movement. With injury, or just wear and tear over time, the rotator cuff tendon can become worn out and tear. If it tears, then reconstruction or repair is necessary in order to decrease pain and improve shoulder function.

This procedure can be done arthroscopically in the case of smaller rotator cuff tears or can be done as an open procedure for the much larger tears. In both cases the goal is to repair the rotator cuff back to the proximal humerus and restore stability and function of the shoulder joint.

The specific type of procedure, whether it is done arthroscopically or open, will depend on preoperative discussion with your surgeon and will be largely dictated by the size of the rotator cuff tear.

Arthritic Joint Care

Joints affected by wear and tear, osteoarthritis or inflammatory arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis, can often be treated through arthroscopic procedures in order to improve joint function. This may include a general joint clean up or debridement or the removal of loose bodies or synovium which is contributing to the symptoms experienced within the joint.

Osteotomy

Osteotomy refers to cutting bone and “straightening it out” in order to align the joint normally and decrease stress on worn out or arthritic areas within the joint. The specifics of the type of osteotomy will depend upon the joint affected, the degree of deformity and the degree of arthritis within the joint.

At times, fractured bones that have healed in a malaligned or crooked position can often be straightened through osteotomy. The specifics of what is required for each individual patient will be discussed with your surgeon.