Staying Power
Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists builds on its “high-tech, high-touch” approach to providing advanced musculoskeletal care for patients eager to realize their greatest potential.
As a young man, Tim Rimmer had surgery performed on both knees to repair injuries sustained while playing baseball and soccer. His surgeon: Thomas Mackell, M.D., a prominent orthopedist whose practice would later blossom into a multispecialty practice called Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists.
Rimmer’s life came full circle in January, when he became CEO of Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists. The practice has undergone tremendous growth in recent years, with the addition of new physicians in various subspecialties and an expansion to four locations (possibly with more to come), all to better serve residents of Bucks and Montgomery counties, as well as parts of New Jersey.
“I wanted to come here because the practice has a nice combination of multispecialty skill sets and a strong desire for strategic growth,” says Rimmer, who joined the practice after a long career in healthcare leadership and administration, both academic and private practice. “Our physicians are top notch, and our practice as a whole has a great reputation in the community. That’s not an easy thing to come by.”
Rimmer attributes the practice’s success to its nimbleness and an unwavering commitment to patient care. Both have helped the practice excel even as patients have raised their expectations and become more educated about their options.
“As a practice, you have to be able to deliver,” he adds. “You can spend as much money on marketing as you want, but if the patient picks up the phone and can’t get through or has a bad experience with a physician, it’s all for nothing. Here, not only does our team deliver on expectations, but we also have a commitment to continual self-improvement and delivering a better experience for patients.”
Every component of the practice’s model is designed help patients achieve their end goal: to return to doing the activities that injury, disease, and overuse have made painful or impossible. Rimmer has witnessed the fruits of the practice’s labor firsthand. His own father recently had hip-replacement surgery performed by one of Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists’ surgeons.
“[My father] was over-the-moon excited about the experience,” Rimmer recalls. “He had 7 a.m. surgery and was home by 11 a.m., healing, recovering, and beginning to do physical therapy in an environment where he was most comfortable. It’s all about providing access to what people need: access to same-day surgery, access to physical therapy right after surgery, and access to a home-health nurse to assist them in their recovery.”
At Full Strength
Each member of the Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists clinical team has a particular area of expertise based on his or her background, training, and individual interests—total joints, hand, spine, foot and ankle, pain management, sports medicine, pediatrics, physical therapy, etc. Likewise, the practice has adopted preoperative planning technology, cutting-edge surgical techniques, and other advances in musculoskeletal care designed to help patients achieve their full potential.
Each member of the Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists clinical team has a particular area of expertise based on his or her background, training, and individual interests—total joints, hand, spine, foot and ankle, pain management, sports medicine, pediatrics, physical therapy, etc. Likewise, the practice has adopted preoperative planning technology, cutting-edge surgical techniques, and other advances in musculoskeletal care designed to help patients achieve their full potential.
The clinical team has grown to more than 20 board-certified and fellowship-trained physicians and certified physician assistants, including two recent additions: Andrew Peacock, D.P.M., a board-certified podiatrist and surgeon who specializes in the surgical and nonsurgical treatment of foot and ankle problems; and Taha Faruqi, D.O., a spine surgeon with a particular interest in minimally invasive surgery.
Originally from Chicago, Dr. Faruqi came to the East Coast to be closer to family. He’s thrilled to have found a home with Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists.
“I’ve been impressed by the patients I’ve met here,” he says. “They’re very active and they want to get better. I’ve been able to tell some patients they don’t need surgery and can get better with the more conservative means we can provide. On the whole they take that advice to heart and put in the work they need to do. You don’t find that kind of commitment everywhere, so it makes for a really nice situation.”
Dr. Faruqi received his medical degree from Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and completed his residency in orthopedic surgery residency at Beaumont Health in Michigan. He subsequently completed a fellowship in spine surgery at the University of California, Irvine, where he worked with and trained under orthopedic spine surgeons and neurosurgeons.
“I always liked working with my hands and had an interest in the engineering aspects of medicine,” Dr. Faruqi says. “As I rotated through the different specialties, I found that I really liked orthopedics, particularly spine surgery because of what you can accomplish for people. Someone with a herniated disc can have a decompression surgery, and within an hour or two the pain is gone. You also get to do more complex surgeries that can completely change someone’s life for the better.”
Dr. Faruqi developed an interest in minimally invasive lateral spinal fusions during his fellowship in California. The procedure involves the joining of two or more bones of the spine to treat disc problems in the low back.
“This surgery has traditionally been done through the back, but in many cases you can use only a small [fusion] cage when you do it that way,” he says. “With a lateral approach, you make an incision near the ribs, which enables you to use a much larger cage for better patient outcomes. And because it’s a minimally invasive approach, the patient should recover more quickly and get back to doing the things they want to do more quickly.”
Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists treats patients at its office in Warrington, two in Doylestown (a comprehensive orthopedic center and an ambulatory surgery center), and a fourth at St. Mary Medical Center on the edge of Newtown, which opened last year. The practice has supported the St. Mary location with the addition of a full-time physician, Richard A. Cautilli Jr., M.D., a fellowship-trained orthopedic doctor with more than 30 years of experience serving the community.
Going forward, Rimmer suggests Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists may soon welcome new staff to support Drs. Peacock and Faruqi, as well as new service lines to better serve members of the community. Another possibility: opening a second surgical center as a supplement to the one in Doylestown, which is nearing maximum capacity.
“Even as we grow and expand, we’re going to maintain the small-practice feel people have come to expect from us,” Rimmer adds. “We’re a high-tech, high-touch practice, and we intend to stay at the forefront of where orthopedic medicine is going. People come to us because of the high-quality nature of the surgeons they’re dealing with, and that’s never going to change.”
For more information on Bucks County Orthopedic Specialists, including its physicians and locations, as well as details about evening and weekend appointments, visit bucksortho.com or call (215) 348-7000.
Photo by Nina Lea Photography
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life, October 2023.
