Specialist Interests

Mr Thomas’s main interests are related to hip problems, both paediatric and adult.

Specifically, he treats a lot of children with Perthes disease and is researching the best method of treatment for this difficult condition. At present he is using a surgical technique developed by a surgeon in India to contain the hip in the older presenting children. The results are being closely monitored as part of an ongoing research programme, but so far are very favourable.

In the adult population, he is very interested in Hip Arthroscopy and is one of only a few hip surgeons performing this type of” keyhole surgery” on a regular basis for selected hip conditions. This has significant advantages over open surgery in terms of scarring and rehabilitation and is therefore ideally suited to professional sportspeople or even recreational sportspeople who need to get back to activity as soon as possible.

Mr Thomas believes that hip surgery will move in a similar fashion to shoulder surgery in that initially there was significant scepticism in relation to keyhole surgery, but 10 years on, virtually all soft tissue shoulder surgery is done using this method.