Start
Not ready for surgery? Many people begin with conservative care for hip and knee arthritis — activity, therapy, medicines, or injections with UHealth colleagues. Surgery is a later conversation, not the first step for everyone.
Your journey
You will never be asked to guess what happens next.
Anxiety lives in the blank spaces. We fill them before you arrive — in English or in Spanish, on paper and in the room.
Book
Call Tower West (305) 689-2663 or SoLé Mia (305) 256-4334, or request below. New patients and virtual visits are open. Bring films if you have them. If you don’t, we will obtain them.
Listen
Not a seven-minute drive-by. What hurts, what you have tried, what you will not give up. Examination. Honest imaging. A recommendation you can repeat to your family in the car.
Prepare
The unglamorous work that makes surgery safer: sugar, blood pressure, weight, teeth, skin, medications, smoking. Director of Quality and Safety is a job description, not a plaque.
Operate
Robotic-arm plan for many primary hips and knees. Modern anesthesia. A team that does this weekly. You stand the same day when you are medically ready. Same-day discharge is a pathway, not a promise. Read robotic hip replacement and robotic knee replacement.
Recover
Therapy with a script, not a shrug. Follow-up that is actually available. The operation is not over when the dressing goes on.
Before the day
Optimization is the operation you cannot see.
Dr. D’Apuzzo’s research life is built on this idea: the weeks before surgery decide a surprising amount of the weeks after. Glucose. Vitamin D. Wearables. Same-day pathways. Infection prevention. He does not outsource the boring parts, because the boring parts are where people get hurt.
- —A written list of what to stop, what to start, and when.
- —Who is sleeping at your house the first night.
- —How you will get from the chair to the bathroom without improvising.
After the day
A typical recovery is not a promise. It is a map.
Day 0Stand. Walk. Go home if that was the plan.
Pain is treated on purpose, not with a single button and a wish.
Week 1–2The joint is new. The muscles are not yet convinced.
Therapy starts. Swelling is expected. Sleep gets better in pieces.
Week 6Most people are living in the house again, not around the house.
Driving, when it is safe. A walk that is a walk, not a negotiation.
Month 3–6The joint stops being the main character.
That is the finish line. Not an x-ray. A day you forgot you had a replacement.
Start with the conversation
Bring the films. Bring the questions. Leave with a plan.
If surgery is not the answer, you will hear that. If it is, you will hear when, why, and what Tuesday morning looks like.