diane - nashville- vanderbilt

[Guest guest]

Diane,

I just noticed in an e-mail that you live in Nashville. I just

saw a local surgeon in my town (athens, AL). My pcp referred me to him in

hopes that he would repair my ever enlarging hernia and maybe be willing to

just look at the pancreas and bile duct to see if there are adhesions as my GI

insists. Both my GI and the biliary surgeon at UAB have said if adhesions are

really the problem that 'any general surgeon' can take care of it. The surgeon

told me that no way would he go anywhere near my pancreas or bile duct. He

said that is a very tricky area and you should only let surgeons that

specialize in that area go near them. He told me that he had much better luck

referring patients to Vandy instead of UAB. He has referred me to Dr. Mertz

(if I can read his writing). The appt is on Nov 20th. Do you know anything

about this doctor? He is supposed to be a biliary or liver/pancreas surgeon.

The surgeon I saw today referred me to vandy with the diagnosis of chronic

pancreatitis despite the fact that my GI is insistent that I don't have cp. He

says the panc is perfectly healthy and the problem is with adhesions.

As for the hernia, he said that I need to have surgery to stop the attacks of

pancreatitis and it would be crazy to repair the hernia now and then have a

surgeon turn around a month later and do surgery on the pancreas/bile duct. He

said the hernia can be repaired when they do the surgery on the pancreas/bile

duct.

W