Dr. Baaj working at Banner University Hospital in Phoenix at the time, performed a spine fusion on me in 2021 from my pelvis to T10, I'm a male, age 62 in 2021. After 2 weeks during after surgery follow up I asked him why I was tilting to the left, he said all my muscles were cut and I would have to wait for 2 years for my muscles to get strong enough to straighten me back up. 3 months later the rods came out of the couplings and had to go back in for surgery to put them back in. Over the 2 year period I was having a lot of trouble because I was tilted to the left. After 2 years I asked for it to be fixed because I was having to much pain, and Dr. Baaj responded that no surgeon would ever go back in to fix it because I was high risk and should look into getting a lift placed in my left shoe to straighten me up. I did so having a foot specialist determine it would take a 7/8" lift to equalize me. The lift never helped, so I was not only living with pain but also was getting depressed because I had nothing to look forward to.
I moved to San Diego in December 2023 and started going to a pain management doctor, he decided to send me to see a Neurosurgeon for a consultation in mid 24, thinking he could assist with all the pain I was having at T10. He was unable to assist but said I should see Dr. Mundis, an Orthopedic Surgeon at Scripps in La Jolla. Dr Mundis said he could help, I was under the impression that he was going to do something around the T10 area, but he informed me that he was going to pull out all the hardware from my pelvis to T10 and install new hardware from my pelvis to T3. He determined with testing that I was not high risk and he promised I would once again be straight and if I wasn't he would go back in and fix any issues. I actually had tears in my eyes because it gave me hope. Just as a note, I was actually straight, looking front to back before my surgery with Dr. Baaj, but from side to side I was a mess. I went through the new spine fusion in Oct 24 and as promised I was perfectly straight. I highly recommend Dr. Mundis for severely deformed spines.
To close, I put down that MAYBE I would recommend Dr. Baaj for future surgeries, because advancements in technology could assist Dr. Baaj to better insure the spine fusions turn out the way they are supposed to turn out. I may have been a difficult case, but Dr. Baaj never once offered to correct the fusion after he realized I was tilting to the left. 2nd, he took all my hope away when he said that no other doctor would ever go back in to fix it, so I lived with it for 3.5 years until I found out otherwise. You may turn out well with Dr. Baaj but I lost all confidence in him. If any Doctor ever wanted to view the before and after views of Dr. Baaj's work and the results of Dr. Mundis's work, all they need to look at are the full body X-rays. I suffered for 3.5 years and had it not been for a caring pain management doctor, Dr. Patel who actually cared about getting me some relief and getting me off of morphine I would still be suffering because I was not looking for another surgeon because Dr. Baaj told me himself that no surgeon would ever go back in to fix it. These comments are true to the best of my memory. read more