Specialists in functional medicine and care

Ruqya Khan speaks to Dr Helge Schmitz, Consultant Orthopaedist at dr. reuter clinic

The experience for our patients is warm, welcoming, comforting, it is bespoke — it is quality over quantity.”

You have several years of credible practice in Germany and you now bring your services to Dubai. Tell us a little about yourself.

In 2019, at the Arab Health Summit I delivered a course on extracorporeal shockwave therapy of the musculoskeletal system. The concept was new to the region and was well received. I realised that this therapy would be valuable in facilitating treatments regionally and given that it was not being practiced by any other doctor here I chose to build my practice here. Moreover, I was drawn by the dynamics of the city and how seamlessly everything here functions.

I am a German Board Orthopaedic Surgeon, and have established my own practice in Freiburg/ Germany since 2006. While I specialise in arthroscopic surgery of the shoulder and knee, I also do a lot of conservative treatment including manual therapy (chiropractic) and shockwave therapy.

What makes your practise unique to the region?

I have been working as a doctor since 1998. I was always drawn to arthroscopic surgeries the most, and hence chose the same as my area of specialisation and focus. Between then and now, I have performed more than 5,000 surgeries in my journey of 23-plus years of medical experience. Surely, the surgical part of treatment is important but I also realised conservative treatment has a vital role to play. Very often, you have a problem in the shoulder for instance, look at the pictures and see something and then decide to go in for surgery. However, there are so many things that can be a part of the problem such as segmental dysfunctions of the spine, etc so I got interested in that too. That is why I specialised in the field, to become a chiropractor and then combine the two. I start with an assessment and if the patient has a problem, which we can solve without surgery we first try that using injections, manual therapy or extracorporeal shockwave therapy. If this doesn’t lead to better impact on the symptoms then we consider surgery. I specialise in arthroscopic surgery, infiltration therapy of the joints, their functional surroundings and the spine.

Is there a difference in how you conduct diagnosis and treatment for the musculoskeletal system?

Regionally, radial shock waves are used by physiotherapists to aid

in the treatment of musculoskeletal dysfunctions. As an orthopaedist, I combine focus shockwaves and radial shockwaves to deliver my results. Both the waves work practically the same way but there is a difference in the depth and area that are treated. In general physiotherapists mostly use radial shockwave but according to my experience the combination of both leads to ideal results.

Progressive conditions such as bone marrow oedema can be treated successfully with shockwave therapy – without being invasive, without infection and practically no risks. With shockwave therapy we register about 80 per cent positive results, which in terms of conservative treatment is quite a lot.

Also, when it comes to diagnosis, people, traditionally are sent for an X-ray and then a MRI. However, I personally prefer conducting the ultrasound after the X-ray to do a functional assessment of the structure. MRI has other values but with an ultrasound I can see the health of the tendon – its mobility, and scar tissue impact on functionality, which an MRI does not allow.

What makes dr. reuter clinic different from the others?

We opened doors in May 2021. We are highly specialised and we focus on what we can do, and don’t do what we can’t do. As healthcare providers it is important to know what you can do but it is much more important to know what you are not capable of doing. This keeps the patient’s well-being and interest at the fore.

We are more personalised in delivering our services. It is not anonymous. We always have the same people serving and not too many people running around. The experience is warm, welcoming and comfortable. It is bespoke – quality over quantity. This is our pilot project and how we want to develop it is to grow in a way that we are recognised as the best provider of excellent healthcare in terms of practitioners, while combining this with an excellent patient journey.