If you were asked to compile a list of English Ashes heroes the name of Derek Bickerstaff would not appear. But Bickerstaff is the sports surgeon who revived the careers of the captain Michael Vaughan and Simon Jones.
The Sheffield-based Bickerstaff, who has also operated on Darren Gough and Blackburn’s Craig Bellamy, is one of the main players in the booming industry of sports surgery, where ruined athletes are miraculously resuscitated, with insurance companies often picking up the bill.
“The whole thing has taken off because of three things,” says Bickerstaff, who specialises in knee treatment. “Techniques have improved, there is more patient awareness and the government have empowered giving patients more choice. There is also more sport-specific surgery these days; sport used to be bottom of the pile.”
Peter Gregory, chief medical officer at the England and Wales Cricket Board, says the main reason is ever evolving technical advances.
“The most pronounced of these would probably be in the field of arthroscopic surgery [in which a small camera is attached to a video monitor] which is now performed not only on the knee but also the shoulder, wrist, ankle and hips. The reduction in the healing time is dramatic.”
Bickerstaff helped Vaughan with a right knee operation in 2002 after the one he had on his left knee in 2001 but it was his work on Jones, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in Australia three years ago, that is most renowned. “I thought my career was over when I dived to save a run – and 10 years ago it would have been,” said Jones.
Eighteen Ashes-winning wickets later the value of Bickerstaff’s work cannot be overstated, though one can put a business cost on it: 4,281. The tariff of prices in Sheffield range from 1,975 for knee arthroscopy to 8,675 for a total knee replacement.
That may sound like good money but sports surgery in Britain is only just beginning to realise its potential compared with what is going on in America where the Six Million Dollar Man – the crashed pilot who received a bionic makeover – would look a cheapskate today. “A top surgeon in England can earn about 200,000. A top man in America, like Richard Steadman, would earn, I would guess, $5m,” says Bickerstaff. It is a cultural thing: “They spend so much more of their GDP on medicine. Also, everyone is insured over there.”
Steadman, 67, is a Colorado-based knee specialist who made his name repairing casualties from the nearby ski slopes and has since operated on Alan Shearer, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Lothar Matthus and Alessandro del Piero. “He’s the genius who saved my career,” said Shearer. “I went looking for the best man in the world and I found him.” Barcelona nudged Henrik Larsson in the same direction.
Steadman, despite his advancing years, still keeps a hectic schedule. “He seems to be a pretty busy guy,” Dundee’s Lee Wilkie said after surgery this summer. “There were 12 people waiting for the same surgery when I was there. He had to work his way between us all, so it’s not as though you get hours of one-on-one treatment before and after the operation.”
Rangers’ Michael Ball has also made the trip to Colorado. “You ask yourself whether the journey is worth it when you could have gone to London. But it is,” he said. “He’s an old man and he’s very laid-back but he’s so experienced. It was only after the operation that I realised how close I was to never playing again.”
When Ball reappeared for Rangers he sent his shirt to Steadman, who placed it alongside similar mementos from other high-profile patients. Van Nistelrooy signed his: “Thank you for giving me back my dream.”
Professor Nicola Massulli, a former athlete and now one of Britain’s leading sports surgeons who has operated on David Batty and Jaap Stam among others, paints a picture of luxury enjoyed by the likes of Steadman. “It’s like winning the lottery every year,” he says. “They own whole floors in skyscraper buildings and that is where they do their work. We’re not talking about the NHS here.”
In America some teams do deals with the media to help pay the medical bills. “There, you are talking about $94,000 (53,500) for a cruciate ligament reconstruction operation,” says Massulli. “And there is rehab involving physiotherapy, psychological reports, the lot. The whole thing is massive.”
Publicity and insurance have not driven up the British market in the same way. “Here, where there is less hype, it will cost 7,000, and much of that will go towards paying the hospital for the operating rooms. In fact the operating team will only receive about 20% of the fee.”
Such is the fame of the American surgeons that private individuals, having seen their heroes miraculously mended, are now trying to get the same treatment. Nicholas Dinubile of Pennsylvania, whose clients include the 76ers basketball team, says: “It’s a fix-me-itis generation out there. We spend a trillion dollars a year on healthcare in this country and now private individuals are looking for the same treatment we give to famous sports stars.
“It’s impossible because these athletes are amazing specimens who have trainers and physiotherapists who work with them day and night. But the treatment given to muscle, bone and joint injuries is now white hot and everyone wants a piece of the action.”
Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 10/13/2005
