This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer. There are only four rules:
No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making
Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.
Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.
We find plenty of faults with the medical profession, but there are certainly some praises due as well. My DaVinci surgery was performed by a Dr. Butler in Wisconsin in 2007. Living far away, in Hawaii, my contacts with Dr. Butler were from a distance till just a few days before the scheduled surgery. On the phone, weeks before, I had been told of the risks by Dr. Butler, and he mentionned possible substantial blood loss as one, but said he had never encountered that problem himself. After several hundred surgeries performed.
When I first saw him in person, and was examined, he right away told me that his prior phone comment no longer held true, he had just days before run into a situation requiring transfusions. But let me know that the patient was stabilized and was now doing fine.
My respect for this surgeon strengthened greatly. He offered up this information on his own initiative.
In a similar vein, a frequent suggestion we make here is to have prospective patients ask about the record of the surgeon as far as incontinence and erectile dysfunction after surgery. My surgeon was plenty busy and he also knew ahead of time that he would be unable to spare nerves on one side of my prostate. If he were looking to build favorable statistics he could just as easily have declined to treat me, for any number of reasons.
I am sure there are a great many surgeons out there who carry a similar honesty and concern for the patient above all. As well as skill. What I think we (as patients) must do is consult with numerous surgeons until we find one who we believe carries these qualities. I suspect this is not possible for many, and I was fortunate to have health insurance that allowed me to shop around in this manner. Getting references from prior surgery patients of a prospective surgeon is a good start. We cannot let haste preclude full and proper scrutiny.
