Re: Dr. Vickers UAB

[Guest guest]

There is a Dr. Selwyn Vickers at UAB's Kirklin Clinic in Birmingham, AL. He

is a hepatobiliary surgeon.

I was seen by Dr. Vickers in September 2002, shortly after I started back

having attacks of acute pancreatitis. My GI at the time kept insisting that

I had adhesions somewhere in the biliary tract and that was causing the

pancreatitis, elevated liver enzymes, abdominal pain, etc. The GI wanted

Dr. Vickers to do surgery and remove the adhesions that he was sure were

causing my problems. My internal med doc wanted me to have a liver biopsy

because my liver enzymes were very elevated. Dr. Vickers didn't agree with

the 'adhesion theory' and he didn't think anything could be done surgically

to help me. He said that 'anybody' could do a liver biopsy and I didn't

need him for that. After a couple of visits and Dr. Vickers and my previous

GI arguing back and forth as to what was causing my problems, Dr. Vickers

said he wanted me to go back to my GI and see if he could 'come up with some

new ideas'.

The GI sent me to the surgeon who he normally refers his patients needing

surgery to. That surgeon also did not think that adhesions would be causing

elevated liver and pancreas enzymes to the level I was having but I had a

large incisional hernia in my lower left abdomen that needed to be repaired

asap so he agreed to 'take a look around the biliary area' to see if there

were any adhesions. When he did the surgery he found both a large

incisional hernia and a small inguinal hernia in the lower left abdomen and

repaired them both. He said he didn't see even a hint of adhesions anywhere

near the pancreas or bile duct. After the GI's 'adhesion theory' was proven

wrong, he decided to do the liver biopsy. That's when we found out that I

have autoimmune hepatitis, which explained why my liver enzymes were so high

even at times when I wasn't having a flare of pancreatitis.

Well, I got off track as usual.

W.