David Bentata – Hip Replacement – Gibraltar
In 2020, I entrusted Dr Thomas Boerger MD FRCSI (Tr&Orth) with my care for a hip replacement operation, a momentous event that brought to a close a story which began over 65 years earlier.
When I was just 10 years old, I suffered a fractured femur after a fall. Mr Dudley Toomey was the surgeon who treated me then, guiding me through a complex six-month recovery. Despite my right leg ending up shorter than my left, I managed to enjoy sports and even crafted my own interior heel lift to compensate for the difference.
Years later I needed a hip replacement, and I turned to Dr Boerger. During the pre-op consultation, I jokingly asked if it might be possible to lengthen my right leg to match the left. To my surprise, he took this seriously and explained what could realistically be achieved.
The operation was a great success. Not only did it relieve my hip problems, but Dr Boerger also managed to lengthen my right leg slightly, an unexpected and very welcome outcome.
There is a certain poetic symmetry to this journey. What began in 1956 under Mr Dudley Toomey ended in 2020 in the Dudley Toomey Ward in Gibraltar, named in his honour.
I am deeply grateful to Dr Boerger, not just for his surgical skill but also for the thorough explanations he provided before and after the procedure. May he be richly blessed.
David Bentata