Graduating residents routinely perform between 1,000 and 1,200 major operations upon completion of the residency. The vast majority of residents go on to subspecialty fellowship training at the program of their choice, followed by careers in academic surgery.
Herniated disks are also called ruptured disks or slipped disks, although the whole disk does not rupture or slip. Only the small area of the crack is affected. Compared with a bulging disk, a herniated disk is more likely to cause pain because it generally protrudes farther and is more likely to irritate nerve roots. The irritation can be from compression of the nerve or, much more commonly, the herniation causes a painful inflammation of the nerve root. If an imaging test indicates that you have a herniated disk, that disk might not be the cause of your back pain.
What is a herniated disc? A herniated disc is a disc that extrudes into the spinal canal. It is also referred to as a bulging disc, ruptured disc or slipped disc. As a disc degenerates, it can herniate (the inner core extrudes) back into the spinal canal, as shown in this picture on the right. The light blue oval area is the disc, and it is bulging into the spinal canal on the lower right side of the disc. A lumbar herniated disc can cause pain to radiate all the way down the legs and into the foot. In the area of the cervical spine, the pain would radiate from the neck, down the arm and into the fingers.