I’m literally just going off of who is referred to me by my HMO.
sure he seems competent.
I have no reason to second-guess the man he did the angiogram
but like what criteria would I go by other than just who I think is a “ cool person?”
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That is a tough question! I was really comfortable with my Dr., and also was quite well known as an excellent neuro surgeon. I found he was down to earth, answered all my questions completely without ego. This part built my confidence greatly, he encouraged questions, and encouraged to do my own research. In Canada we have a site called rate MD where you can see some other patient reviews, although I always remember bad news travels faster than good news!
My position was to be at peace with the decisions I made, recognizing that there are few absolutes in dealing with the brain. Sometimes we won’t know if it is right or wrong until well after the fact. My neuro, as I was looking at options, answered the question “If it was you, what would you do?” I did not ask him what I should do, but his answer sure helped me figure that out! Take Care, John
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Our approach was: seek out multiple “second” opinions. We saw one neurosurgeon referred by our daughter’s pediatrician, one from a highly respected research hospital reasonably close to home, and two from online records sharing consultations with additional research hospitals. Google your condition and look at the Drs who write or review medical journal articles, or hospitals with specialized teams that treat your condition. My understanding is that “where you go” determines the approach most used to treat, whether via removal, coiling, gluing, etc.
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I don’t know if there is a good way to pick a surgeon honestly. The thing that I’ve been trying is just hitting up anyone that has good repute. I have an easier time in that regard since my AVM is complicated and doesn’t lend well to surgery. One of the things with AVM is that most of the eager to operate/aggressive surgeons will be at high volume centers (Barrows, Brigham and Women’s/Harvard). I know that some surgeons like Michael T Lawton, Aaron Cohen Gadol, and Nirav J Patel, will take on riskier cases in an open craniotomy. Other surgeons will admit they can’t operate - some may say that no one can operate - and you just have to continue collecting opinions.
I’d like to comment on list of doctors that you provided in terms of eager to operate/ high volume centers. After nine surgical opinions, my young adult son chose Dr. Michael Lawton. After all the opinions that he got, seven out of nine recommended surgery one was 50-50 surgery or gamma knife only because he felt some patients were too afraid of surgery therefore, gamma knife might be an option. And then one only embolization. What we found in our experience with Dr. Lawton as a family is that he is highly skilled because of the fact Barrow is a high volume facility and also he’s very selective about his cases too meaning that he wants to be successful and if yours is a case where he feels, the outcome won’t be positive he will pass, and there have been many people that said Dr. Lawton would not take them as a case. It is a challenging and important decision to make. We were most fortunate in terms of our insurance. We had a PPO and also live in the US which allowed us to go anywhere we wanted. And as a mother, caregiver to my young adult son who had undergone surgery last summer every time I think about it, it still brings me to tears.
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