DoDMERB Past Surgery Question

[Aztec Tiger]

My son had small portion Meniscus removed from his knee in the 10th grade. He wrestled the same year and has played soccer and wrestled his Junior year. My question is, should I get a letter from his Orthopedic surgeon stating he has no physical limitations from his surgery? We don’t want anything to delay or hold him back medically on this physical.

Does anyone have Suggestions or went through this and can help?

Thanks in advance!

 

[flieger83]

I would have all his medical records handy, including a full writeup by the orthopedic surgeon detailing the injury, the surgery, results, future prognosis. It sounds like he did fine and is fully good to go, but that's my opinion.

I've had a lot of candidates in similar situations...it's usually a quick check of the records and that's it.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

 

[GoCubbies]

My son had small portion Meniscus removed from his knee in the 10th grade. He wrestled the same year and has played soccer and wrestled his Junior year. My question is, should I get a letter from his Orthopedic surgeon stating he has no physical limitations from his surgery? We don’t want anything to delay or hold him back medically on this physical.

Does anyone have Suggestions or went through this and can help?

Thanks in advance!

In addition to a letter from the orthopedic surgeon stating he has no physical limitations, the actual operative report and post-op visits should be included with any info you bring to the DODMERB exam.

Having the primary notes (pre-op and post-op ortho visits, operative report, rehab notes from physical therapy, etc) are much better than just providing a single memo from ortho surgeon.

 

[Heatherg21]

This thread helped me, our DS has DODMERB exam next Monday, and he had surgeries in middle school for broken bones in arm. I requested just picked up all medical records related to it, and the last exam states: no long term issues, full range of motion, complete recovery, young man in excellent health. So we will definitely be taking that with us to his exam. Thanks for the tips!

 

[boxmm24]

We are in the same boat with an ortho surgery last winter (ankle fracture). I just picked up all notes from surgeon, pre/post op, final clearing for activity, etc., but should I be requesting Xrays as well? Haven't yet requested PT notes either.

 

[GoCubbies]

We are in the same boat with an ortho surgery last winter (ankle fracture). I just picked up all notes from surgeon, pre/post op, final clearing for activity, etc., but should I be requesting Xrays as well? Haven't yet requested PT notes either.

Reports of x-rays or other imaging studies should suffice.

 

[future.mil.mom]

Also, make sure you keep all copies of everything. My DS brought all of relevant reports mentioned in these threads to his exam (for stuff we knew would trigger a remedial) and handed them over to the doctor. Despite this DoDMERB still gave him a remedial and we had to resubmit everything we had already given the doctor. No big deal...but certainly would have been if we didn't have duplicates of everything "on the ready".

 

[future.mil.mom]

To add to my above post....my DS also was DQed after obtaining Qualified status (which he obtained based on my description from my previous post on this thread) for an ACL tear. So I can confirm that the remedial for that knee surgery specifically required, not only a clearance of all restrictions letter, but pre and post operative reports, all physical restrictions that may have been imposed, any follow-up visit reports, x-ray reports, and pathology reports.

I can also add that after we did provide this information (which was approximately 9 months after his ACL surgery-past the 6 month automatic DQ for any surgery), he was placed back on Qualified status. He had been given a Deferral to one of the SAs when the injury occurred (because he already been admitted and had been Qualified) so he was granted his waiver - but that's a whole other story.

Point being is that my DS's ACL surgery sounds "worse" than your DS's surgery and was not from years ago and he was still given clearance. So given our experience, as long as you obtain all of these reports and submit as required your DS should be fine I would think.