Patient Testimonials

Dr. Ridley, thank you SO much! There are no words to express how incredibly grateful I am to have the chance to live life again! This experience has far exceeded my expectations. The path to TCO and your care a very difficult path. I was previously told I had to live with this, so you can imagine how elated I was after our initial meeting. I was beyond excited that I could be fixed and have a chance at an active life once more. That chance is turning out to be a miracle in my eyes! It is very clear you are an amazing doctor/surgeon. Your passion and care for your patients is obvious. I literally traveled by air and land to get that type of care and would do it again in a heartbeat. I have boasted very highly of you up here in the northland! TCO and Dr. Ridley definitely deserve a stellar review. I am excited for my new adventures and I owe it to Dr. Ridley!

I fell in October and was transferred by ambulance to the emergency room. I found out I had a broken hip and I had surgery the next day with Dr. Bircher. Since surgery, I haven’t had any problems with my hip and it was a quick recovery. I had two follow-up visits with Dr. Bircher and I explained my knee problems. After looking at the x-rays, he explained the options to me. Dr. Bircher is a good listener and is very good at calming me down! He was very thorough. I would definitely recommend Dr. Bircher.

I had an arthritic shoulder that was so painful. I was greatly limited in my basic daily tasks and it greatly disrupted my sleep. Dr. Norberg performed a reverse shoulder replacement and I am pain free. I am able to sleep and now get back to golf. He is a wonderful doctor and has an outstanding bedside manner.

After slipping and falling on my icy driveway, an MRI revealed three tears to my rotator cuff, and I needed surgery. The recovery is a marathon, but I’m grateful to have had a gifted surgeon like Dr. Frank Norberg. I’ve had a fabulous recovery so far, and I just feel really fortunate.    Watch Frank’s Recovery Story

I was suffering for quite a while from bursitis and thumb arthritis. I called Twin Cities Orthopedics who connected me with Dr. Fischer. He was wonderful. In a matter of minutes Dr. Fischer knew exactly what my problems were and how to fix them. I had heard horror stories for years about how painful cortisone shots were. That was not the case with Dr. Fischer. I was pain free within a day. He works miracles and I am so glad I found him. He specializes in hand and wrist areas but was kind enough to help me with both of my shoulders. What a wonderful and caring doctor.

I wanted to thank Dr. Maura Hartigan for the care she provided me. She helped with the ongoing pain in my back, neck and head due to arthritis that has taken over my body the last several years. I had this same treatment done 3 years ago by another spine specialist. It 100% helped me for 3 years with severe back, neck, and arm pain. Dr. Maura Hartigan was very kind, caring, and did a great job helping me transfer my file to her from another specialist. Dr. Hartigan and her team were kind and caring. She explained the narrowing going on in my back that was not talked about from my last specialist. I’m so thankful I was referred to Dr. Hartigan. I’m so grateful to her and her team for such great care and helping with my ongoing pain.

This is the second knee replacement that I have suffered through but this experience was so much better than the first! My last PT scared me, stating that we would not only walk up to the house of pain, but we would go inside to sit down during the therapy! Yikes. Meeting with Rod Youngdahl, PT was an entirely different experience! He managed my therapy in a very reassuring manner helping me to understand the process and created reasonable expectations for milestones in my recovery. His pleasant, easy-going manner was very encouraging and supportive always checking with me to avoid any unnecessary discomfort while helping me attain my goals for the session. He has helped me achieve great strides in my rehabilitation while enjoying the experience with humor along the way! This therapist is top-notch and a real asset to the organization!

Thank you Dr. Kirksson, I was truly impressed by you! I have seen many doctors over the last years and am looking forward to possible treatment. You focused in on the problem and I was impressed with your knowledge of my case. I have renewed confidence in the system.

I am in my mid 50s and very active. By the time I came to TCO I was ready for a hip replacement. In our first appointment, Dr. O’Neill handed me the implant, explained exactly how it functioned, and described the approach he would use to implant the device. He gave me a realistic timeframe of my return to normalcy. I appreciated his technical approach and confidence that he had with the expected results. My experience was exactly how he had shared with me prior to surgery. I am already back playing sports, biking, and doing a lot of walking. I highly recommend Dr. O’Neill and his wonderful staff!

After a 2.5 year reoccurrence of a herniated lumbar disc, I found myself with pain so intense in my right leg. I couldn’t stand up and put equal weight on both legs until I spent an hour trying to walk around my dining room table while holding onto the chairs. After that “warm up” exercise, I could then walk cautiously throughout the rest of the day. By evening, all I could do was go to bed early and start the entire process over again the next day. After more than a month of this cycle, I met with Dr. Hoel and he outlined some possible options like physical therapy, cortisone shot, or a micro discectomy. He reviewed each alternative and let me make my own decision. I was reluctant to proceed with surgery of any kind even though this procedure was less invasive than others and he had performed hundreds of these in 2022 with a high rate of success. He left me confident that the surgical option was the right step for me. Immediately after the actual surgery, I felt near total relief in my right leg. Although the days and weeks that have followed have come with some morning leg pain, by the 7th week post-surgery, I was nearly 100% pain free.

I certainly attribute my successful outcome to Dr. Hoel’s experience and skill, as well as his support staff, Christine and Julie. Any time I would call into his office, his staff returned my call promptly and offered advice to my immediate questions. On my last appointment with Dr. Hoel (7 weeks post-surgery), he expressed confidence that I should feel total relief with a little more healing time and offered specialized physical therapy if I wished to pursue that. Furthermore, he indicated that I should not experience a reoccurrence of this herniation again and that left me with more ease than at any time during the entire process. From this entire experience I have come to believe this area of medicine requires astute science, but also some degree of art as well. As a result, I couldn’t recommend more highly Dr. Hoel and his support team to anyone with spine/nerve issues.