A Chicago man is on the road to recovery after undergoing a unique procedure with World War II roots.
Discomfort in the groin led to a diagnosis of an inguinal hernia for Craig Conover, who says he wanted no part of the common fix for the issue, which involves surgical mesh.
“It can shrink, it can move around, it can get infected and there can be other reactions to the mesh. They’re pretty uncommon, but I didn’t want those things to happen and I didn’t want to worry about those things happening.”
There is an alternative: Shouldice repair, first done during World War II, in which surgeons use a patient’s own tissue for groin hernia repair.
Dr. Megan Melland-Smith and Craig Conover
Northwestern Medicine
“The overwhelming benefit is that you avoid a large piece of mesh in your groin. Mesh is permanent.”
That’s Dr. Megan Melland-Smith, a gastrointestinal surgeon at Northwestern Medicine, one of a few in the nation who can perform Shouldice repair, which she recently did for Conover.
“I’m feeling basically back to normal, ready to go back to all my normal activities.”
