Wednesday, November 25, 2015


Cache County’s second spine specialty clinic is celebrated

By Mikala Lindhardt

The grand opening of Logan Regional Hospital’s Budge Clinic on Nov. 7 included a celebration for Cache County’s second spine specialty clinic.

“There has been an increase of spine patients and more of a demand for doctors, thus creating a need for a new clinic,” said Colin Roper, a medical assistant for the spine clinic.

Due to the rise in patients Logan Regional Hospital saw fit to not only have an orthopedic clinic, but have a separate office to deal with spine injury patients located in the Budge Clinic.

The spine center was previously located in the hospital and patients were required to pay a hospital fee. Now patients can be seen faster and treated by spine specialist without the hospital fee, Roper said.

“With extra space we can have more physicians and help more patients,” Roper said.

The spine treatment clinic has two spine surgeons and three non-operative spine providers, physiatrists.

The clinic sees patients with every kind of ailment and many of them are referred by other physicians in the Budge Clinic, emergency department at Logan Regional and surrounding clinics.

“We treat anyone with neck and back pain no matter how the injury was sustained,” Roper said.

The out-patient clinic offers a variety of services including, steroid injections, surgery consultations, therapy, electro diagnostic testing, diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound and sports medicine.

“The fluoroscopy machine, also known as a live x-ray, is a huge asset to our new clinic,” Roper said. “Using this machine, our doctors can accurately get medicine in the spine where it needs to be.”

Dr. Jake Carlson, a spine specialist at the clinic, believes in the importance of keeping the spine healthy.

“There are a lot of things people can do to keep their spine healthy,” he said. “Avoiding obesity and keeping their core muscles strong are both important.”

The spine clinic stays busy with patients and procedures even with competing Alpine Orthopedic Specialists.   

“We usually have a full schedule every day,” Roper said. “On any given day we could do about 16 injections using the fluoroscopy room.”

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