Dr. Shawn Patrick Hanlon, MD

I found Dr Hanlon to be knowledgeable about his craft. However, he definitely possesses an implicit bias if your BMI is over 40. Both of my knees are bone on bone. They have been for roughly 15 yrs. My BMI is 51. I am 5'5" & weighed about 335 lbs when I saw him. (I'm a little less now.) He told me that I needed to lose weight & get my BMI down to 40 before he would operate on my knees. I have chronic back pain due to a prior back injury & have had 3 major & 3 minor back surgeries in the last 26 yrs. I also have a severe case of osteoarthritis in my back & both knees. Besides my lack of mobility due to pain, I told him that I was put on a medication that caused me to gain weight. That put me further behind the 8 ball. He just referred me to get knee injections for pain relief. He refused to do the knee replacements that I need due to my BMI/weight. I fell over my dog & onto 1 of my knees. After an MRI, it was discovered that my ACL is nearly all torn. It's being held together by "a… few fibers". I contacted Dr Hanlon's ofc with this new development. I saw his PA in ofc & explained how unstable my knee is since my fall. The PA conferred with Dr Hanlon & told me that Hanlon still refused to operate on my knee bc of my weight. I find this discriminatory. What it boils down to is statistics. Some ppl with a bigger BMI can have a higher rate of infection. IMO Hanlon doesn't want to risk his good record & take a chance on an obese patient. He's not the only 1. I called an orthopedic surgeon in Rockford & they told me that their dr doesn't operate on anyone with a BMI over 40. I saw an O/S in Davenport, IA who I knew that operated on a woman that was almost twice my size. He did both of her hips & knees & 1 of her knees twice, but he told me that I needed to lose weight. I think that he must have been related to her. So a "fat" person is just supposed to suffer in pain bc doctors don't want to risk having a surgery that could lower their stats. That's just WRONG. Btw, when I first had symptoms, the dr that I saw, when I was much thinner & I had a smaller BMI, told me that I was too young. I was 45yo. So, I'm either too young or too fat.

scheduled me quickly for non-emergency surgery. set up tests, follow-up visits, pre-surgery phone calls with his staff. i was at CGH at 8am and on my way home by 11am.

Dr. Hanlon is a one in a million doc. They dont come better than this one. His bedside manner is beyond reproach and skills as an orthopoedic surgeon are superb.