Ortho: Adele Sorensen, Dr. Mark E. Wheeler
Hip bone’s connected to the . . . knee bone?

For years and years, Adele Sorensen, 73, suffered with every step because of two bad hips and two bad knees. The pain was such recently that she walked with one foot at an extreme, 30 degree angle.

“I’ve dealt with lots of pain,” she says. “We actually moved out of one home so I wouldn’t have to climb stairs. I sat on the lowest bleachers at my grandchildren’s games because I couldn’t climb them either. It’s not much fun sometimes.”

The simple desire to be free of joint pain offers great motivation for patients like Adele to travel to the very best hospitals they can find for treatment.

“When the pain gets to the point that it doesn’t allow someone to enjoy their lifestyle anymore, they want relief,” says Dr. Wheeler, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City.

Having had one hip replacement in the 1990s, Adele recently decided to take care of her other bad joints. She knew where she wanted to go.

“I decided I didn’t want to fool around with this anymore,” she said.  “A couple of friends told me Mercy is the place to go, and they were right. When my doctor gave me a possible date for surgery, I grabbed it.”

She trusted her surgeries to Dr. Wheeler and the staff of the Mercy Total Joint Care Center in Sioux City.

“Having an inpatient facility dedicated to joints is a huge plus from the patients’ standpoint,” Dr. Wheeler said. “Joint replacement is a major operation, and patients get the care here they need to recover more quickly.”

“Mercy is a real leader in this,” he adds.

National researchers concur.

In a 2008 report of 5,000 hospitals nationwide, analysts with HealthGrades® give Mercy the highest ratings possible—five stars— for both Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement surgeries. Mercy also earned an additional five-star rating for Orthopedic Care.

Compared to other hospitals, Mercy’s staff offers a great amount of experience with joint replacements, performing more than twice the number of hip and knee replacement surgeries on average, according to HealthGrades®.

Mercy’s General Surgery Services also earned the top, five-star rating, and the staff has earned many Patient Safety Awards from HealthGrades® over the years.

Adele understands why.

“Everybody up there—nurses, aides, physical therapists, occupational therapists, doctors—are all on the same page,” she said. “They talk to you about what’s going to happen, but they also give you a handbook with everything in it,” she says. “You know what to expect.”

Despite such good preparation, Adele’s did have one surprise just after her first knee surgery. As part of her Rehabilitation, her physical therapist told her to put full weight on that leg.

“I thought, ‘Yeah, right,’” she recalls, laughing a bit. “But I did, and it was great. You get so used to the bad pain you had before, and it wasn’t there.”

Adele says she knows she could have gone to another hospital, far away to Duluth or Minneapolis where hospitals also do good work.

But she was able to get joints good as new right here in her own community, at Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City.