Rectal Cancer Surgeon Shopping

menright

How does one best shop around and assure oneself that you are teamed with the best surgeon for your purposes?

I am considering calling the hospital and asking for the list of rectal cancer surgeries and which doctor performed the surgery. Quantity may indicate good practice.

I am eager to hear any ideas on how best to select a surgeon. I have been introduced to one and he seems qualified and is a fine person. I want to assure that the latest technologies and techniques are being used.

I really just want to complete my due dilegence so that when all is done and over, I know I asked the right questions and the results are the best available at the time.

I do not plan to travel out of state for the surgery. That seems like overkill.

Ideas?????

Mike

kimby

Surgeon Shopping
I needed a liver surgeon, not a rectal surgeon but this was my method. First I went to my Med Onc. I had chosen him carefully and trust his judgement. He is a grad of Harvard Med School and has been working at this cancer center for 30yrs. He has lead many investigational studies and clinical trials and is a professor at the university. He made a suggestion and I asked him who he would choose if it were him having a liver resection. The answer was the same....in fact he added that if I were his wife or daughter he wouldn't let anyone else touch me.

Then I researched his credentials. Turns out he has worked with my Med Onc for 30yrs...they started there the same year and have conducted those trials as part of the same team. I wanted someone respected but also someone who had done hundreds of resections, not someone new. A couple dozen surgeries wouldn't be enough for me for rectal surgery.

Infusion nurses...although it really is just another opinion, they hear the good, bad and ugly and are usually pretty open with whom they would use. Be careful, sometimes it is about who is "nice" to the nurses. Although I think that is an important charactoristic, when it comes to surgeons, bedside manner is WAY down my list.

Patients tend to be pretty loyal to whomever they used and put much too much emphasis on bedside manner for my taste.

Good Luck,

Kimby

msccolon

I agree with Kim on this one
I would ask my medical onc, but also my gastroenterologist. Definitely look for someone who specifically does anal/rectal surgery and LOTS of them! I'm also with Kim on not giving a hoot about the surgeon's bedside manner! Give me an a$$hole who's dam good at what he does over a nice newbie! I can always make friends with the night nurses if I want someone to make me feel good!
mary

taraHK

Good question
Yes, "volume" is important -- you want someone who routinely does many of the type of surgery you are having. Ideally, someone who works somewhere where they audit their results (either clinical audit or presenting research findings). Keep 'em honest! And (for me) someone who is up-to-date with current research/practice guidelines. Of course, all this can be hard to determine! One can ask some questions during a face-to-face meeting. Otherwise, it is word of mouth and recomendations from others. I had my surgery done at a big hospital with a lot of colorectal surgeons. I got my recommendation from the anesthetist! (I work with her husband). Interestingly, not the "Chief" (who apparently spent a lot of time in meetings!) but the #2.

Good luck in your search.

Tara

KathiM

I called the local gastric guys...
And asked who they referred their 'too low for attempt' patients to...

after 3 of the same name, I stopped...soooooo glad I did....4 years in May, with my
'new' rectum and I have only a few complaints (sigh, my big one is no more popcorn...lol..)

Kathi

Moesimo

major cancer center
Make sure that you go to a major cancer center. Mine was an oncology surgeon and not a colorectal surgeon, but he only does GI surgery. I got his name from a friend who works in surgery. He is in Boston at the #5 cancer center in the country, He did a great job.

Annabelle41415

Surgeon
I started with one and even though I thought she was qualified I asked my radiation oncologist who he thought would be his best choice (we have a lot of doctors at our hospital) and he gave me a name and I went to go see him. I have just been to an ostomy meeting on Sunday and out of the 23 people there about 19 people knew of him and they didn't go to the same hospital I did so that made me feel very good. My first surgeon had less than 10 years too which made me want to get a second opinion. I'm very comfortable with the one I selected. He knows I don't want a colostomy but I told him first and foremost I want to be cancer free.

Good luck!
Kim

jillpls

surgery shopping
I got my second opinion at UCSF and they referred me to my surgeon that works with my insurance and had worked with the other docs at UCSF. Very good surgeon and I did do the back ground check as best I could. You want the very best possible.
JIll

danny64

Shopping for good surgeon
Well I guess U need to seek recommendation from the hospital doctors/nurses/friends. Try to arrange for the 1st appointment with the recommended surgeon/s before U decide. The most important thing in choosing the right surgeon is : Feeling good & comfortable during your 1st appointment & consultation with him(surgeon).

tkrb

Dr. John Skibber at M.D.Anderson in Houston, Texas. Hands down. I do not believe my husband would be thriving as he is at today if we had not went there!!

trainer

KathiM said:

I called the local gastric guys...
And asked who they referred their 'too low for attempt' patients to...

after 3 of the same name, I stopped...soooooo glad I did....4 years in May, with my
'new' rectum and I have only a few complaints (sigh, my big one is no more popcorn...lol..)

Kathi

No popcorn? ARRGGGGGGH!
That is the worst torture and agony I've ever heard connected with this cancer stuff! We live on popcorn! Couldn't hardly do without it. With 7 sistes and a brother, it was one of the few affordable snacks for all of us. Then in high school, a bunch of us would hang around this one family's home almost every day (well, they had really cute daughters) and the Mom there would pop corn for us in practically a non-stop manner. Beverage of choice was icewater! so when we went off to college,most of us kept the popcorn habit. And then in the Navy, there seemed to be a popcorn popper in every workspace on the ship, so we always had popcorn (served in one of those heavy duty paper bags called a Burn bag, where all confidential material would be placed and taken to be burned in a special oven onboard. Those were seriously heavy-duty bags! Never showed the grease soaking through. Then ashore, because the Navy paid so well, popcorn became our Sunday evening meal, spiffed up with cheese and apple slices on the side. So when we got off active duty, we kept up the Sunday night tradition. i forgot to mention that my wife came from a large family and they also had popcorn on Sundays for the evening meal. We are both from Kansas, so the corn seemed appropriate!

And we kept up the tradition still to this day. Our two kids took the tradition with them to college and now on their own. So Pete, who's married, started it for his family, and his wife and her parents thought he was crazy. But guess what, now his in-laws have popcorn on Sundays. And Pete's kids love to have it whenever they come over to the house, which is quite often. His 11-yr. old daughter, Abby, got tired of calling it the long, drawn-out name of popcorn, chese and apples, so she started calling it PCA, which is what we all now call it. (She's come up with a lot of new words over the years, when she was little, she would refer to something that happened yesterday,as "Lasterday" so of course we rewrote the Beatles' son from Yesterday to Lasterday and used to sing it with her.

So, I'm feeling your pain on no popcorn. The horror!!!!!