University Hospitals Only? What hospital do you go to for treatment and/or surgery?

TerryV said:

We opted to stay close to home
Nick didn't want to travel too far beyond his family support base, so we remained in Iowa at Stoddard Cancer Center (affiliated with Methodist Hospital) for treatment and surgery. Dr. Kollmorgen did Nick's THE surgery.

Nick is 6 months past surgery, has had 2 CT scans and everything is GOOD.

Terry

Close to home and a great hospital
Don will have his surgery Thursday at University of Michigan. Dr. Reddy is his surgeon. As long as you have an experienced team in esophageal cancer - you should do fine. Esophageal cancer is a rare cancer but becoming or is the fastest growing cancer in the United States. There are many family doctors not aware of the need to dig deeper into the reason a person needs medication for indigestion or acid reflux - so they prescribe the meds and before you know it - you have esophageal cancer. We really need to shift focus to the primary care doctors to include barium swallow tests or endoscopes for patients and not just automatically prescribe a medication that covers up the real issue.

Thankfully, we have some wonderful facilities in the United States and oncologists and surgeons who are making great strides in the treatment of esophageal cancer. In our research, John Hopkins was also mentioned to us. The larger facilities obviously have the most traffic and are bound to be more capable of handling esophageal cancer than a local community hospital. You should be very, very comfortable with your surgeon and ask lots of questions. You can send a private message to William or Paul and ask for a list of questions or browse through some of the past posts on here.

Bottom line - you want experienced doctors in esophageal cancer - no matter where they are located.

Regards,
Judy