Re: Finding Surgeons

[Guest guest]

snellshein wrote:

> Rob,

> We're just beginning to research surgeons for our 2 1/2 year olds eye

> surgeries. How did you find experienced surgeons? We seem to have

> quite a few doctors interested in working on 's eyes- but I'm

> hoping it will be a one-time surgery for each procedure and don't want

> him to be practice for a curious surgeon!

Absolutely! BPEI is a technically interesting and challenging problem

for surgeons, and there are many who'd like to 'have a go' in order to

enhance their CVs.

In searching for surgeons, we kept in mind BPEI's rarity and also that

it's usually treated in childhood, and looked where surgeons will be

most likely to have seen it: specialist chidrens' hospitals and

specialist eye hospitals. In our experience, any surgeons outside of

those places are very unlikely to be able to do the job.

We approached the nearest/best childrens' hospital (Royal andra) and

spoke to the head of the ophthalmic department there. We later learned

he does work in the plastics department of the Sydney Eye Hospital. Bingo!

We also searched for recent medical journal articles our son's specific

problem (ectropion), not only to learn about it, but also to see if any

local surgeons had published their experience or research. We found at

least one that way.

In any case, we were very careful to make sure any surgeon we spoke to

had performd the specific surgery before, and on children. We conducted

what were effectively job interviews (except we had to pay!) with the

surgeons, asking about what they'd done, what they'd written, any

before/after photos of patients, what specifically they would do for our

son (and ask for references to journal articles explaining the procedure

they were going to do). Some surgeons looked OK, but we didn't like the

operations they wanted to perform, so we kept looking. That's why it's

important to learn about the medical procedures, because sometimes the

doctors don't know about the best ones. Of course, if they hadn't done

the exact procedure we wanted, on children, we moved on.

We also didn't want to speak to TOO many surgeons, as that is not only

very expensive but also gets confusing (like shopping around for

anything, really). We found 5 or 6 was enough.

I hope this is helpful for you to get started with. Make a long list of

questions for the interviews, and try to ask the same questions with

each surgeon, to make the comparisons easier.

Good luck!

Rob

[Guest guest]

Rob,

Thanks so much for sharing your research ideas! I'll let you know how

things go.

Sari