Customise Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorised as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customised advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyse the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

St. Joseph surgeon straightens crooked spines

Sarah Markiewicz was sitting on her living room floor a year ago when her father, Jeff Markiewicz, noticed that one of her shoulders seemed to be sticking out.

“I had complained for years about her never sitting up straight,” Jeff Markiewicz recalled. “We thought that maybe this was more than just not sitting up straight.”

An X-ray confirmed Markiewicz’s suspicions. The bones in his daughter’s back were indeed crooked – a result of scoliosis that so badly affected her spine and ribcage that her internal organs had shifted five percent.

“The curvature was progressing so much that it would have affected her breathing and she would not have had a normal life,” said Dr. Paul McAfee, chief of spinal reconstructive surgery at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson.

McAfee performed surgery June 21, inserting 22 screws onto Sarah’s spine to hold two rods.

“We loosen the ligaments of the spine until we get the spine as straight as possible,” McAfee explained. “The rods hold it straight and then we put bone graft over the back of the spine so it fuses in that straight position for the rest of her life.”

Two weeks after the surgery, Sarah was already swimming. Her posture improved dramatically, with two inches added to her height. The graduate of Towson’s Notre Dame Preparatory School is walking five miles a day and has joined the marching band at her college.

“I feel so much better,” said the 18-year-old freshman aerospace engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “If anyone is considering this surgery, I really can’t stress enough that they should just get it done. It makes your life so much better.”

When Sarah underwent the procedure, specialists used a spinal cord monitoring system to make sure there were no changes in blood supply to the spinal cord or kinking of the nerve routes.

“We stimulate nerves in feet and hands and measure the electrical signals along the spinal cord five times a second,” McAfee said. “If there were any problems, we would have picked it up immediately and fixed it. That’s why we were able to straighten her spine completely.”

St. Joseph’s attracts scoliosis patients from around the world, McAfee said, with doctors handling 400 cases a year.

Scoliosis is seven times more common in girls than boys, according to McAfee. Those who suspect they may have spinal curvature should consult a physician, he said. In some cases, braces may be used to prevent the progression of a curvature in growing children. In others, surgery may be the better option.

McAfee said it’s important to catch the condition early. That’s why schools in Maryland conduct annual scoliosis screenings. Although Sarah underwent screenings, her condition was not detected until her late teens.

“Every year that you wait makes the correction more difficult,” McAfee said, noting that in patients with scoliosis, the spine typically curves one degree per year.

Jeff Markiewicz, whose family worships at Our Lady of Fatima in Baltimore, said that if his daughter did not undergo surgery, by the time she was in her 50s her spine would likely have curved to the point that her face would be facing the ground.

“It’s a medical miracle,” he said.

Catholic Review

The Catholic Review is the official publication of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

En español »