Did they x-ray his hip and say he needed it? I sure hope his pain is not like what I am living with. My M.D. sent me to the Orthopedist and he first made an x-ray and said nothing was wrong with the bones. He thinks its a sciatic nerve and I disagree. The MRI tells more than an x-ray.
I have a friend who is 13 years older than me (really old.LOL) she fell about 5 years ago and was having a lot of pain. She had a friend take her to the E.R. and they x-rayed it and said it wasn’t broken and sent her home with medicine. She suffered for about 5 more days something awful and went back to E.R. and they did an MRI and it was broken in 2 places, isn’t that terrible? Doctors can be wrong and are many times.
Yes many times over the years, he has a deteriorating hip joint probably injured when he fell through a floor during a structure fire. He would have had it replaced years ago but is hanging in there until retirement in a few years. The pain is getting bad, it's hard to watch him go through it.
That's terrible about your friend, there are good and bad doctors, I've known both kinds.