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Dr. Kim Templeton
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VIDEO: Dr. Templeton - Are Bone Tumor Biopsies Painful?

Dr. Templeton recalls if biopsies of bone tumors are painful.

Dr. Templeton:
Biopsy of a bone tumor can be painful, and this is something that we typically do in an operating room with the patient either asleep or with the arm or leg numb so they can’t feel what we are doing. There are nerves that are around bones and so those hurt when you try to move them, which is why people have pain when they break a bone, because every time that broken bone shifts it irritates the nerve and makes it hurt.

Also, bones are very deep, so to get to a bone to do a bone biopsy, you’ve got to move the muscles out of the way, and so if there’s a concern about someone having a bone tumor and we’re looking at a biopsy, this is something, again, that we usually do in the operating room with someone asleep.

About Dr. Templeton, M.D.:
Kim Templeton, M.D., received her degree from the University of Missouri School of Medicine with a specialty in orthopedics and musculoskeletal oncology and began her career with an orthopedic residency at Chicago's Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center.

She then accepted a Musculoskeletal Oncology Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 1995, she came to the KU School of Medicine, where her commitment to excellence and orthopedic education has opened the way to positions of leadership. She is now the Director of the Orthopedic Residency Education Program at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, holds the first Joy McCann Professorship for Women in Medicine and Science, and currently serves as president of the KU Medical Center's Women in Medicine and Science program.

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