Speaks Maecdonian needs help

lion1 said:

If I had to do it all over again, I would have reviewed a website like this one before having my LRP two years ago. My doctor was one of the best, however, I was left incontinent. Yes , he did nerve-sparing surgery and that part is going well with Cialis. But, as I read about the Robotic Surgery, done by Doctors like Tewari, I believe that maybe I would not be incontinent today. I did my research, by not enough concerning the incontinence factor. Yes, MY CANCER is gone and I am thankful. However, I feel I acted to quick and was not thorough. I was operated on two months after I found out I had cancer. But, I could have waited up to six months to take action. I am glad I see people seeking opinions and advice before making their decision. I wish I was more thorough. Of course, there are no guarantees, I would have remained continent. I'm deliberating with my doctor what to do next. I am too young for an Artificial Sphincter and I don't believe the advance Sling will work. Collagen injections are what I'm looking at now. I encourage everyone who reads this to advise their friends to explore websites like this one before making these lifelong decisions.

Hope my advice helps someone out there. I don't want to see anyone deal with constant leaking.

Lion1

"My Doctor Was One of The Best..."
If this'n doesn't put you to sleep, nothing will:

As something to ponder, I don't think it's possible to determine whether a doctor is "one of the best" or even, "one of the worst." How would anyone determine that? As it is, the only way to tell which one is "one of the worst" is to have access to malpractice or similar info. If you read a brag sheet in a brochure or similar performance history about a particular physician, it was probably like reading most resumes, i.e., writer input prepared by the physician, themselves...and full of slanted, exaggerations for marketing purposes.

Of course, many rely on Aunt Minerva's or Uncle Charlie's words stating this or that doc was the "best in the country." Shurrrrr...but truth is, they have no clue, either. What info could they possibly be basing such a thought?

I think I've found a way of locating the most highly skilled surgeon(s) or any other clinician or practitioner for that matter. See if this makes sense: using the internet as a search tool, find the best hospital or clinic having the specialty or subspecialty of interest. The rankings are developed by the U.S. News & World Report using a set of established attributes the medical community considers essential criteria for such rankings. The document is on the U.S. News & World Report's website and is available for download and inspection (a PDF file).

It's a fact that the top, high-end hospitals and clinics will hire only the upper few percent of all candidates considered. By the same token, the best in their respective fields want these type organizations on their resume...a professional badge of honor, so to speak.

Type "best hospitals" in your search window, then select the specialty (disease or condition) of interest. From there, select "best hospitals" within that subcategory...say, "cancer." You should have something like this:

http://www.usnews.com/directories/hospitals/index_html/specialty+IHQCANC/

A better gauge than anything else I can imagine, you can probably be assured that the "best hospitals" earned their national ranking by having the best in about any and all attributes that the survey will evaluate. The nation's high-performance clinics and hospitals are extremely picky about who becomes part of their professional staff. Ironically, none have particularly high compensation packages because they are probably non-profit at onset. They don't hand out bonuses and don't have commission-based positions like you'll find in investor-owned, for-profit clinics and hospitals.

As you might expect, the most highly skilled surgeons and other physicians never had income as a career objective at onset. This is to say that these type people didn't select their careers with financial goals as a priority, anyway. In contrast, the driver of all this appears to be the simple fact that each staffmember loves their job, literally "lives" for what they do, and can't wait to get to work every morning. When one is driven by a perfectionist and self-satisfaction seeking attitude, they are also going to be the best in their field. At the clinic in charge of my treatment, typical titles might be: physician-professor, physician scientist, or even physician-professor-scientist. Of course, academic institutions like this use research-based protocols exclusively. They are also the leading-edge institutions that attract this level of expertise and skill.

I didn't just pull this opinion out of the air as mere conjecture, but formed it after being fortunate enough to have conversations with several of these extraordinarily driven persons during lunch in the clinic's cafeteria, after hours during dinner, and on a couple of occasions, off-topic chit-chats that drifted away from cancer subjects in an exam room. I don't know this for sure, but I felt I was allowed a "back-stage" inner peek at what drives these people only because I was considered a "9-lives cancer curiosity." I really never thought of it that way, but must admit that a 2001-2008 relationship led to being known on a first-name basis by quite a few.