Nicholas D. Fletcher, MD

07/25/2023

At two months old, Alex was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis and ever since, has been in treatment to fix the curve in his spine. His family turned to Dr. Fletcher, an orthopedic surgeon at Children's, for a halo-gravity traction procedure to help gently stretch and straighten his spine.

Alex didn't let the weight of the device slow him down. According to his nurses and doctors, he’s known as the fastest patient on his floor—running through the hospital halls to get his exercise in.

09/09/2022

Congratulations to Jessica on starting medical school over 10 years after I met her and 7 years after her spinal fusion. I always enjoyed her shadowing me during her college years and sharing her experience with children about to undergo a similar procedure. Maybe a future pediatric spine surgeon….

12/27/2021

I hope everyone has had a good holiday. We just published the latest (20th I think?) episode of interview with a pedipod, my podcast featuring conversations with leaders in the field of pediatric Orthopaedics. This months guest is Dr. Jeff Sawyer from the Campbell clinic in Memphis and the incoming president of POSNA. Thanks for the listen!

‎Show Interview with a Pedipod, Ep Dr. Jeff Sawyer, Dec 2021 - Dec 27, 2021

12/01/2020

Great job by my main man Nolan. Thanks for all your support of CHOA too! https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/couple-gives-back-to-atlanta-hospital-that-saved-sons-life

11/19/2020

An exciting month for our research team. A few years ago our scoliosis team at CHOA-Egleston with Dr. Bruce and myself began using a short course of steroids after spine surgery to try and decrease the amount of opioid medications that kids needed to recover from surgery. Steroids have been used in lots of other surgical areas with good results but never in spine surgery. After a tremendous amount of work from our team including our tireless NP Tracy Ruska and Ndeye Guisse who is a superstar medical student, we had our data published in the premier orthopaedic journal, Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Our results found that adding steroids decreased pain medication requirements by a whopping 40% and that kids walked quicker and got home earlier without any increase in complications. This is big news for all patients undergoing this kind of surgery because opioid use has its own well known problems. For more info, please see these links:
https://www.healio.com/news/orthopedics/20201105/steroids-after-posterior-spinal-fusion-may-decrease-opioid-use
and:
https://www.mdatl.com/2020/11/childrens-study-shows-steroids-reduce-opioid-use-following-posterior-spinal-fusion-surgery/
and:

https://twitter.com/childrensatl/status/1326969995826499584

10/25/2020

Brand new episode of my podcast for POSNA "Interview with a Pedipod". This month's episode features two of my favorite people and world class surgeons, Christine Ann Ho and Amy McIntosh . I didn't realize that this is actually Dr. Ho's SECOND podcast this week... Enjoy!

Nick Fletcher speaks with Dr. McIntosh of TSRH and Dr. Ho of Children's Health in Dallas. They discuss their backgrounds, careers, balancing home life with work, being women in orthopedics, and more. Produced by Nick Fletcher and Carter Clement. Music by C...

08/03/2020

A tremendous story of perseverance! Allie was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 13. Already a scratch golfer, she showed a similar level of dedication to her treatment and has been crushing it ever since (she won the Rocket Tour Players Championship at the University of Georgia just before this photo was taken). As this newspaper article shows, she was incredibly dedicated to wearing her Rigo Cheneau brace whenever she wasn't playing and doing her PT with our amazing therapist Kristin Howell. This combination of treatments has shown incredible results as a nonsurgical method for certain types of scoliosis. Despite the fact that she did all the hard work, she was kind enough to go above and beyond by raising money for our scoliosis research at CHOA now that she has finished her own treatment. Thank you Allie!!!

07/01/2020

4 weeks after posterior spinal fusion! And you wouldn’t believe some of the things she was doing 17 days out 🤦🏻‍♂️🔥👍🏻

03/21/2020

Apparently I botched the website. Again, this is a tool that quickly tells you the risk of having COVID-19 and can help determine whether further care is needed. Please share as needed and stay safe!

Check your risk for COVID-19 based on best clinical practices, CDC guidelines, illness severity and risk factors like age and pre-existing conditions.

03/20/2020

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/20/us/20reuters-health-coronavirus-screening.html

This is a website produced by my brother’s company that can risk stratify based on your symptoms whether you are currently at risk for COVID-19. The website is www.mycovid19.com and it is quick and easy. Please share and stay safe!

Americans worried about their exposure to coronavirus can check their symptoms with new screening tools online.