News Releases

Baylor Scoliosis Center Celebrates Five Years of Service

(PLANO, TEXAS – Nov. 30) – Baylor Scoliosis Center at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano is celebrating five years of providing hope to more than 1,000 scoliosis patients throughout the world. The Center is one of only a handful nationwide with fellowship trained physicians on the medical staff, capable of performing advanced, complicated spinal procedures offered.  

In celebration of the Center’s service to the North Texas community and beyond, a few of our patients share their stories of how Baylor Scoliosis Center has changed their lives. To watch the patients tell their stories, visit www.TheBaylorScoliosisCenter.com. 

Darleen Jordan: Scoliosis sufferers know that it’s much more than a back problem. “You’re miserable all over. There’s pain 24/7. It never goes away,” says Darleen Jordan. She tried for years to get relief. “I’d had numerous surgeries,” she says, “and I was still miserable.” Then Darleen went to the Baylor Scoliosis Center. “The doctor knew exactly what to do,” she says. Anterior and posterior spinal fusion surgery straightened her back. “I was desperate,” she says. “Now I’m having fun.”

Megan Wright: At age 11 Megan Wright’s scoliosis wasn’t yet painful. But then, she says, “The older I got the worse it got…and the hump on my back was embarrassing.” In her 20s, she began having increasing pain. Then she went to The Baylor Scoliosis Center, where she had posterior spinal fusion surgery. Afterwards, “When my mom saw me she gasped; I was so straight and tall,” she says. “I spent 26 years feeling unhappy about myself. Now I don’t have that, and it’s an amazing feeling.” 

Megan Wygocki: After years of crippling pain from scoliosis, Megan Wygocki had enough. “I was having trouble breathing. I couldn’t play with my kids. At times I couldn’t even get out of bed,” she says. Finally, Megan went to The Baylor Scoliosis Center. “It took me 15 years to find a doctor, but only 15 minutes to trust him,” she says. At Baylor, posterior spinal fusion surgery straightened her spine. “For the first time,” she says, “I could walk my son to school. Now, simple things make me extremely happy.” 

To view additional patient stories, visit www.TheBaylorScoliosisCenter.com. 

Over the past five years Baylor Scoliosis Center has achieved many important milestones that have helped increase the Center’s ability to provide quality care to patients. Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano was recently designated an Aetna Institute of Quality Orthopedic Care Spine Surgery. Aetna designates hospitals and facilities within the Aetna network as Institutes of Quality based upon an evaluation of clinical performance and overall value of facilities. In addition, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, A Division of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company, an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, has designated Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano as a Blue Distinction Center for Spine Surgery®, and the hospital was named a 2010 recipient of the Texas Award for Performance Excellence.  

The Center is also leading efforts in scoliosis research, and in October 2008 Baylor Plano celebrated the Grand Opening of the Baylor Research Institute Clinical Trials Office – North on its Campus.   

Earlier this year, the Center began providing a new saliva test that helps predict if a child’s scoliosis will get worse. The SCOLISCORE™ Prognostic AIS Test may help reduce frequent X-Rays and doctor visits for low risk patients.  

A patient care nurse navigator was also hired to help guide patients and their loved ones through their treatment plan while lending support and answering questions throughout the patient’s care.  

The Baylor Scoliosis Center is a national referral center located on the campuses of Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano and Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth and focuses on the care of adolescent and adult scoliosis. It is the first Center of its kind in the Dallas/Fort Worth area devoted to treatment, surgery and care of advanced spinal curvature.  The Center provides care to people living with the pain and disfigurement of scoliosis – even those who were previously told their condition was untreatable.  

Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano is a 112-bed acute care hospital committed to serving North Texas residents with personalized care and advanced technology on a beautiful campus with hotel-like amenities and all private rooms. Services at the not-for-profit, fully-accredited facility include treatment for advanced spine deformities at the Baylor Scoliosis Center, neurosciences, orthopaedics, medical and radiation oncology, surgical weight loss, women’s services, gynecology, urology, gastroenterology, pulmonary medicine, sleep disorders, pain management, diabetes management and more. Patients have access to digital imaging onsite at Baylor Plano and at the Baylor Diagnostic Imaging Center at Craig Ranch, an outpatient department of Baylor Plano. The hospital is the first in North Dallas and Collin County to offer minimally invasive robotic surgery for gynecology and prostate procedures through the FDA-approved da Vinci® S Surgical System.  The hospital has won several quality awards including the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Award of Excellence and is designated a Pathway to Excellence™ hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.  Jerri Garison is president of Baylor Plano. For fiscal year 2009, Baylor recorded $3.9 billion in total assets and $452.4 million community benefit. For more information, visit www.BaylorHealth.com/Plano 

*Represents preliminary information that will be reported to the Texas Department of State Health Services.  

Physicians are members of the medical staff at one of Baylor Health Care System¹s subsidiary, community or affiliated medical centers and are neither employees nor agents of those medical centers, Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano or Baylor Health Care System.  

Note: Designation as Blue Distinction Centers means these facilities’ overall experience and aggregate data met objective criteria established in collaboration with expert clinicians’ and leading professional organizations’ recommendations. Individual outcomes may vary. To find out which services are covered under your policy at any facilities, please call your local Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield Plan.