Zarins Bertram, MD

Had Bert do both my shoulders. Wonderful work. You should always look for the best when it comes to your body. And Dr. Zarins is just that. Both of mine were done two years apart. MGH has the best pre and post care in the world. I feel very fortunate to have been repaired by Dr. Zarins and the MGH team.

An old dance injury recurred, and Dr. Zarins performed arthoscopic knee surgery. He did a flawless job; my knee is 100% healed. Outstanding!

Dr. Zarins was very nice, but he’s not a good listener, and he gave a ridiculous diagnosis — everything was tendinitis.
The visit was for two injuries — a traumatic shoulder injury and a sudden knee injury. Since I’ve had tendinitis in the knees before and I could tell him it did not feel the same at all — there was a sudden pain in the knee and pain upon extension & flexion, and it feels like there is something stuck inside the knee. The shoulder was injured during martial arts. Neither one feels like tendinitis, neither was caused by repetitive over-​use, and neither one meets the symptoms for tendinitis.
So. 20 min visit — stupid diagnosis, and $ 700 bill. Good thing we have insurance too, otherwise it would have been $ 1500. Now we have to try to find a different Dr, who will actually listen, or just put up with the pain and hope it goes away.

I had a ski accident and went to ER. I scheduled a visit with Dr. Zarins (69 years old) 4 days later about my shoulder. He diagnosed a Type 2 separation and refused my requests for physical therapy (PT) even though I’m an athlete and he said it would «heal itself». He never did an Xray or MRI. Months later, he told me the AC joint «healed too tightly» (probably because of no PT) and I would need DCR (removal of part of the collarbone) surgery to stop pain and catching. I consented to arthroscopic surgery only. He failed to show up for the pre-​op appointment a few weeks later. He did surgery seven months after the accident without EVER DOING AN XRAY OR MRI.
After the surgery, where he cut off a piece of my clavicle (collarbone), I completely lost use of my right arm. The pain meds didn’t work and 2 days later, my hand was numb even though a block wasn’t used. I called Dr. Zarins, who said «I didn’t operate on your HAND» and «Take a couple of Advil.»
The next day, I took off the bandages to discover that he had done OPEN, not arthroscopic surgery, even though there were «no complications.» Instead of a 1″ incision for OPEN surgery (which his online leaflet says), I had a 3″ incision and ANOTHER 1″ incision next to it, like a railroad track. I asked Dr. Zarins when he took out the stitches (without washing his hands or wearing gloves) later that week WHY he did open and not arthroscopic, as we agreed. He said, «Because it was faster.» (Total surgery time was 18 minutes!). I repeated what he said, and he replied, «oh, I meant that it heals faster.» I replied that I thought that arthroscopic healed faster, and he said, «Whaddaya worried about the scar! It’s only an inch!»

He again refused to give me a script for physical therapy. After I insisted, he gave me one for FOUR visits (the norm for this surgery is 18).
Although the clavicle degeneration was «mild» at the time of the accident according to the ER, because I did not have physical therapy, the bone in my AC joint was destroyed, and the degeneration was «severe» at the time of surgery, according to the pathology report.
What is most horrifying is that, although I visited Dr. Zarins office 3 times, he failed to diagnose a torn rotator cuff, damaged labrum, Hill-​Sachs fracture (in the humeral ball), severe tendinosis, and dislocation, which I discovered when the first MRI was done by another doctor. Dr. Zarins did the WRONG SURGERY on the wrong part of my shoulder. Dr. Zarins’ misdiagnoses and poor surgical technique on my AC joint, which would have been totally unnecessary had he followed a normal standard of care and might not have been necessary anyway since it wasn’t the cause of the pain or catching, have left me with constant shoulder dislocations from minor things like lifting the vacuum cleaner or putting down my brief case, permanent hideous scars, deformity due to the massive scar tissue underneath, neck seizures, debilitating ongoing pain, tendinosis which can NEVER be undone. The rotator cuff, which was not repaired in time, has turned to fatty tissue meaning that further surgery is unlikely to be successful. I have permanent vascular and nerve damage caused by the surgery.

The pain and catching are ten times worse than before the surgery, because it was the other injuries, not the clavicle, which was catching and causing the pain. I am in horrible pain, and for 6 months, couldn’t even be gently touched. My life has been ruined. I may never be able to successful compete in the sports I once loved.

I have undergone 2 procedures at another hospital, still in physical therapy after 8 months, and am now awaiting another surgery. All because of the unnecessary surgery, poorly done.
I will never have normal use of my arm because of this doctor who couldn’t be bothered to take an MRI or Xray, take 10 more minutes to do an arthroscopic procedure, examine me properly, or show up for a pre-​op appointment. I have also been left with a mountain of medical bills, and lost substantial income because I am self-​employed.

I am a fat runner.
I can run pain free in vibram toe shoes, but when I run in sneakers, i get this nasty pain in my knee. I just wanted to go in and see if it was something serious that would plague me later in life, or if I was fine, as long as I run in toe shoes.
He told me that, because I am overweight (except he didn’t say «overweight» or even «fat», but rather that i created extra impact), I should not run. He hardly listened to what I had to say, saw fat+runner, and basically said, «nope!» before telling me that I have a swimmer’s build. Pfft.
Smart guy, knows his stuff (i researched him before going), but gave me no options and just said not to run so much. I didn’t learn anything from him that Google didn’t already tell me. And he wasn’t nice about anything.
more:

I went to see Dr. Zarins Bertram after reading about him on Unilocal then doing some more research on my own. This guy is the premier team doctor for most of the major sports teams in Boston. You can see this by all of the sports autographs plastered all over his office. I felt very satisfied after his evaluation, the only reason for the minus 1 star was beacuse of the extremely long wait on my first visit (wasn’t able to see me until 8:30AM for my 7:30AM appointment). the first visit his schedule seemed less overloaded and actually saw me a little early.

Dr. Zarins is the best orthopedic surgeon in the world, as far as I’m concerned. He is the team doctor of the Patriots, Revolution and the Bruins and is a pioneer in sports medicine. His methods, procedures and programs have been tried and tested on many, many athletes over the years. He takes care of the weekend warrior the same way as he takes care of the multimillion dollar professional athlete.
He performed surgeries on me two years in a row. The first procedure was to repair a torn labrum (cartilage in the shoulder socket). I originally injured it when I crashed into a fence while making a catch in the outfield. And then suffered through repeated dislocations playing flag football. I finally decided to see him and the surgery took place in the middle of November. Since it was my non-​throwing shoulder I was back on the softball field in April.
The second procedure was to repair a completely ruptured Achilles (injured while playing flag football). This took place in October, just eleven months after my shoulder surgery. Again, I was back on the softball field in April.
He accepts most major health plans (like BCBS and Tufts).
P. S. It’s pretty cool that he has autographed photos and memorabilia from hundreds of professional and famous amateur athletes all around his clinic. Doctor’s visits kind of felt like being in a sports museum. Ouch, ouch, ouch… ooh look… Bruschi.