Phillip Thomas: Consultant Hip Surgeon, Cardiff, Wales

Specialist trauma and orthopaedic hip surgeon in Cardiff, Wales, who treats the full range of hip conditions including sports-related injuries, as well as hip conditions in children, babies, adolescents, and young adults.

Mr Phil Thomas is a full time Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Hip Surgeon who works at the University Hospital of Wales and Llandough Hospital, Cardiff. He has been a Consultant since 2001 and has developed a specialist interest in hip disorders.

He regularly deals with both paediatric hip disorders and adult hip problems ranging from babies with dislocated hips to adults with hip arthritis. He deals with many of the consequences of childhood hip disorders which can lead to young adults with problematic hips.

Over the last few years he has developed an interest in hip arthroscopy and dealing with young adults with problems such as hip impingement by keyhole surgery. This practice includes sportsmen and athletes with groin and hip injuries.

Mr Thomas is the Orthopaedic Surgeon for the Scarlets regional rugby team and is also one of the surgeons involved with the Wales senior rugby team.

He performs large volumes of hip replacement surgery throughout the Cardiff regional Hospitals in older patients and this includes the use of femoral resurfacing, as well as conventional total hip replacement using large head ceramic and metal bearing surfaces.

He also has a well-established medico-legal practice and regularly deals with patients who have sustained a personal injury and those affected by medical negligence.

Mr Thomas attended St Thomas’s Hospital, London in 1985 for his medical training and qualified in 1990 (MBBS). He returned to South Wales for one of his house jobs and then to do a casualty post at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. In 1994 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCS Eng) and started his orthopaedic training in 1995 on the South Wales rotation.

He worked in several hospitals in the South Wales area, including the Royal Gwent, Morriston, West Wales General and the University Hospital in Cardiff.

In 1999 he took his final orthopaedic exams and gained the FRCS (Trauma and Orthopaedics). After this, to complete his training, he went to Canada to do a Fellowship in Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at the world famous Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. At this time he also developed his interest in paediatric and young adult hip disease.

In 2001 he was appointed a Consultant at the University Hospital of Wales and Llandough Hospital. This was a full time appointment in a busy teaching hospital. He continues to work here on a full time basis with a practice mainly involving paediatric and young adult hip problems. He also specialises in paediatric trauma. He is an Honorary Tutor to the medical school and is regularly involved in teaching and examining medical students.

The hospital also has an active research programme in which Mr Thomas regularly participates.

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 "key hole 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.

Recent publications

• Non union of stress fracture of femoral neck in a child managed with valgus osteotomy

     Lakshmanan P, Thomas DP
     European Journal of Trauma. (Case Report)

• Anaphylaxis following prophylactic i.v. cephradine in an orthopaedic patient

     Lakshmanan P, Thomas DP
     Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol (2005) 15:32-33

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