Choosing surgeon

[plsflgood]

One of the posters recently mentioned that the surgeon should be "one with a lot of experience and a high success rate." This is obvious, but is surgeon's success rate is a publicly available information ? I don't think so.

 

[Paleowoman]

but is surgeon's success rate is a publicly available information ? I don't think so.

It is available in the UK on this website: http://heartsurgery.cqc.org.uk/index.aspx Though it's not up to date, it shows the various hospitals where cardiac surgery is done plus the individual surgeons in each hospital and their mortality/survival rate. I would have thought you have some similar information in the US ?

 

[Ovie]

I didn't choose my surgeon this way, but when I was looking to see his credentials and what not webmd.com? I believe showed ratings of surgeons, their experience, where they went to school, where he did his residency etc. However I just googled my surgeons name and the links that came up were webmd.com. Had all types of information. Than again I knew who I was looking for. Don't know if any of that helps you.

Good luck though.

 

[Ovie]

PS- to my knowledge it is and can be public information. However I'm new to the site and I assume one of the veterans will have more information than myself to offer

 

[Lynlw]

One of the posters recently mentioned that the surgeon should be "one with a lot of experience and a high success rate." This is obvious, but is surgeon's success rate is a publicly available information ? I don't think so.

Unfortunately there isnt one place you can find out the surgeons experence or success rate especially when you really need to find surgeons who are very good at the surgery/condition YOU have and not just "heart surgery" in general. However when narrow down your list and you are interviewing surgeons they certainly should be willing to talk about how many of a certain procedure they do a year and their success rate..(altho "success rate" can be tricky, since many of the "best' surgeons in the leading centers are willing to operate on the sickest patients who need the most complex surgeries that other surgeons wouldn't touch, so their stats may LOOK worse than a surgeon that does "simplier" hart surgeries in relatively health people day in and out") IF you know what hospital/s you want to use, they usually can tell you which surgeon
specializes in what you need.
But making sure they do have alot of experience in what YOU need is important for example, surgeons who operate on adults or in local community hospitals, usually mainly have the most experience in doing Bypasses and maybe a few "aquired' problems like a basic valve replacement on and not much experience with n "structural" repairs or replacement like valve/ aorta or the more complex congenital heart defects. but (IMO of course)for a first time valve replacement or even valve and CABG certainly is worth while at least looking at hospitals close to home and not having to travel if a closer surgeon does valve replacements weekly or a couple a week. For valve surgery
VR.org is a great place to find out who had surgery either in a certain area or if you have a surgeon in mind you can do a search here and see what comes up.

IF you don't have to use a certain hospitals because of insurance or even because you have a good relationship and trust your Cardiologist and prefer to go to hospitals they have privledges in, most hospitals that are a part of universities generally have great surgeons and are up to date on the latest research. IMO IF you have a more complex valve/Aorta surgery or other medial problems that make you higher risk so need "the best" a good place to start looking to find the "best' hospitals, is the US news rankings, you can search either by specialty all over the US, or you can search for the best hospitals and http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals or the best hospitals by location that is further broken down by specialties.
for Adults with complex CHDs and usually had surgery as a child/teen it is a little harder, but for the most part the surgeons who have the most experince in CHD surgeries and Multiple REDOS also the best Childrens heart surgeons and either operate on people of all ages at a Childrens hospital and also on staff at "adult' hospitals or regular hospitals that also have childrens departments http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/pediatric-rankings/cardiology-and-heart-surgery

 

[Boston Tiger]

It is available in the UK on this website: http://heartsurgery.cqc.org.uk/index.aspx Though it's not up to date, it shows the various hospitals where cardiac surgery is done plus the individual surgeons in each hospital and their mortality/survival rate. I would have thought you have some similar information in the US ?

I know that I dug up the information in my research leading up to my operation, but have no recall where exactly I found it. Maybe it was something run by my particular state (Mass.) rather than a nationwide database. I remember looking through that and seeing that the surgeon I eventually selected performed 200 or so operations per year, far higher than the number done in the career by the surgeon I was first referred to.

 

[Lynlw]

It is available in the UK on this website: http://heartsurgery.cqc.org.uk/index.aspx Though it's not up to date, it shows the various hospitals where cardiac surgery is done plus the individual surgeons in each hospital and their mortality/survival rate. I would have thought you have some similar information in the US ?

It was interesting there was 5200 aortic valve replacements in the UK in a year.