How to find a surgeon?

[Garserin]

Dornole, my surgeon at Mayo specializes in mitral valve repair, including robotic. Check him out, I believe it definitely worth your time to talk to him.

 

[AZ Don]

I thought someone said something about a paid data ranking service in something I read? But I can't find it.

Castle Connolly provides a listing of top ranked doctors nationwide by specialty for about $2/month: http://www.castleconnolly.com/. I believe they used to provide the data for US News and World report which provided such info for free just a couple years ago. US News does still provide listing of top hospitals.

The top doc list is probably more subjective than objective, but I think it's a good place to start. Another option is Healthgrades.com which is free. They allow patients to rank Dr's and I've found Dr's highly ranked by a number of patients to be very good Dr's.

 

[dornole]

Awesome leads, thanks - more also welcomed.

I honestly don't know if repair will even be an option for me - it looks like certain types of mitral repairs have an almost 100% success rate, can be done by robots and generally sound like a dream come true as far as those words can be applied to heart surgery, but unfortunately my poking around makes it seem like I have the "other" kind (rheumatic - many different structures within the valve affected plus high potential to re-scar after repair). It will be good to hear from a repair expert or 2 regarding feasibility and details of success / failure rates for my kind of repair.

I will definitely check out both castleconnolly.com and Dr. Rakesh Suri, thanks.

 

[MrsBray]

I looked at who my insurance would cover, and brought that list to my cardiologist AND my primary care doc. I asked each one to circle 2 or 3 they would recommend. I also got input from the front office staff as well. Or, ask your friends if they can give you a name of someone - like a doctor or nurse - who might be able to make a recommendation