Reply To: Watchful, could you summarize your experience at Shouldice?

[Watchful]

I will write an update about my condition when I have some more time.

Meanwhile, in terms of whether I would make the same choice again or not… No, I wouldn’t in my particular case, but my case was complex and unusual. For that, you really need to go to a place with more personalized care, and broader expertise. The Shouldice Hospital is a very focused factory, and that’s not a good fit for anything complex or unusual. It’s also problematic in case of complications, and they don’t have much experience with diagnosing or treating post-surgery pain issues. Ideally, you want a surgeon who is well-versed in that because they know better how to avoid those issues to begin with, and they’re better positioned to help you correctly if something happens.

I think if you have a run-of-the-mill inguinal hernia case, it’s fine to go there as long as you get to pick one of their best and more experienced surgeons (I mentioned some names – Hall, Simmons, Slater). If I had such a case, would I go there knowing what I know now? It wouldn’t be my first choice, but nowhere near the bottom either.

I would go to one of the top German surgeons. I mentioned some names before – Conze, Wiese, Lorenz. They perform good diagnosis and follow-up, they are very careful, and they don’t force tissue repair on cases where it’s not a good fit – they are good at figuring that out, and using mesh if needed. They’re capable of doing Shouldice well, and they do many of those, but they avoid doing it in cases where it’s likely to be problematic. Dr. Conze would be my first choice since he also has experience with treating post-surgery pain issues.

By the way, going far away, and particularly abroad is far from ideal. It’s not at all easy even if everything goes smoothly. If there are complications or other issues, you can be in a very stressful and difficult situation, which may even influence you to make sub-optimal decisions at that point. Unfortunately, there are very few good choices for tissue repair in the world, so local options don’t exist typically.