FALL RIVER — Dr. Gary M. Ferguson, an orthopedic surgeon, educator and innovator of a knee implant that is used worldwide, has joined Southcoast Physicians Group and is performing surgeries exclusively at Charlton Memorial Hospital.
Ferguson is seeing patients in his newly renovated office at Truesdale Health, suite 113, 1030 President Ave.
He comes to Southcoast Health from the University of Orthopedics in Providence, R.I. where he practiced since 1998. He was a clinical professor of orthopedics at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University during those years.
Ferguson developed the current orthopedic program at Miriam Hospital and served as clinical director of Miriam’s Total Joint Center.
He came to Southcoast in order to “simplify” his life and focus his career on direct patient care.
He said he was impressed with Soutchoast Health and is interested in building an orthopedic program in Greater Fall River as part of Southcoast’s regional program.
“Southcoast is now embarking on an ambitious program to bring orthopedic services to the entire community,” Ferguson said. “Charlton is a gem. It is staffed with very caring people. Patients get great care.”
Dr. Michael Langworthy, who heads the orthopedic program for Southcoast Health at its three hospitals, said the group is expanding a system-wide orthopedics program that started a little over a year ago at its Tobey Hopsital site in Wareham, and then St. Luke’s in New Bedford.
Fall River has become the new focus with Ferguson as the city’s first Southcoast Physicians Group member orthopedic surgeon.
“I think he’s really going to contribute to orthopedic care in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” Langworthy said.
Ferguson, 22 years ago, designed and developed, along with a group of engineers, a cobalt and chrome alloy knee implant which has stood the test of time. Some 99.9 percent of the knee implants used in the world today are made of those materials.
Ferguson said he combined all the best information about implants and designed it in order to offer better care for his patients.
What drives Ferguson is a “limitless passion for patient care” with a continuing emphasis on “better,” as opposed to “new” technologies, treatments and outcomes.
Ferguson introduced ceramic-on-ceramic total hip replacement in 2002, and computer navigated total hip and total knee replacement surgery in 2006, both the first of their kind in Rhode Island. He has been training surgeons locally, and internationally in total hip and total knee replacement his entire career.
The ceramic replacements are less problematic than metal hip replacements and can last a lifetime, according to Ferguson.
“It’s reasonable to say in 2014 that there’s an 85 percent chance that a joint replacement will last a lifetime,” Ferguson said. “That’s good for patients.”
Besides program development, Ferguson has a deep interest in minimizing patient recovery time with techniques that reduce pain and quickly increase mobility after surgery.
“It’s a multi-model approach,” Ferguson said.
Pain management, which might include nerve blocks and tissue injection during surgery, has been a “dramatic and positive step forward” in joint surgery.
“Health care has changed so much in my career,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson, whom some might say has “bones in his blood,” was born into a family of orthopedic physicians.
His paternal grandfather, Albert Ferguson Sr., was chairman of the Department of Radiology at Cornell Medical School, where in the 1930s he was among the first to write textbooks on the subject of orthopedic radiology.
Ferguson’s father, Albert Ferguson Jr., a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, was chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.
It wasn’t uncommon for Ferguson at a young age to dine with his parents and orthopedic surgeons from China and Japan, during his father’s partnerships with them to participate in educational programs.
When it was time for Ferguson to choose a program of study, he never considered another career.
“I never looked back,” Ferguson said. “Orthopedics was attractive to me because it addressed functional capacity now.”
Ferguson earned his doctorate from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed his residency in general surgery at Tufts University, Baystate Medical Center, followed by a residency in orthopedic surgery at Harvard University. He completed fellowships in orthopedic research at the University of Pittsburgh, orthopedic adult reconstruction joint replacement at the Mayo Clinic, and a European traveling fellowship, AO and Cave Memorial Fellow, at Harvard University.
Ferguson, a father of three grown children, resides in Mattapoisett.
He is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, American College of Surgeons, the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons, AAOS Instructional Coure Lecture Hip Subcommittee, Orthopaedic Research Society, Pennsylvania Medical Society, Allegheny County Medical Society, Rhode Island Orthopedic Society, Rhode Island Medical Society, and Arthritis Foundation, Board of Governors.
To schedule an appointment with Dr. Ferguson, call 508-973-2218.
