02/11/2025    Mark Hinkes, DPM

MIS Now Out of the Shadows (Joseph Borreggine, DPM)

As a traditionally trained podiatrist who was
taught "open" foot surgery procedures in my
residency, I remember hearing about MIS foot
surgery procedures and wondering if adding those
procedures to my armamentarium would be of value
to my patients. To learn more about MIS foot
surgery techniques, I traveled to New York with a
colleague to attend a course taught by Edwin
Probber, DPM.

About 6 podiatrists sat in a room in the back of
his office we affectionately called “the bunker"
and watched Dr. Prober via closed circuit TV
perform MIS procedures. What I saw was both
frightening and amazing at the same time. There
was a lot of head shaking going on. I asked
myself, how could he do this without destroying
vital structures in the foot that could not be
seen while doing these procedures? I remember
being taught not to place a blade in a place that
I could not directly see it. MIS foot surgery
challenged all of what I had been taught and
learned about traditional "open" surgical
procedures. I did not have the opportunity to see
any long-term results from these procedures, so I
felt I was only exposed to half of the world of
MIS foot surgery. I had heard of the botched cases
and was concerned about this, always wanting the
best post-op results for my patients. There were
some aspects of how Dr. Probber interacted with
his patients that I disagreed with
philosophically, nevertheless it was the technique
I wanted to learn more about.

After witnessing all that happened in my visit to
Dr. Probber's office, I left with more questions
than answers. Knowing that MIS type procedures
have been employed by other surgeons on other
parts of the human body gave me enough confidence
to read and learn more about them. After
acquiring what I felt was enough knowledge, I
started to employ MIS procedures in selected cases
that I felt competent in performing. My results
were excellent and I was happy that I took the
time to learn about them.

The lesson I learned was to be open-minded about
new techniques and to have the ability to
personally challenge myself to be a better
podiatrist.

Mark Hinkes, DPM, Nashville, TN

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