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Pls help me choose among these 3 surgeons. thx.
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Thank you Mark for your reply and I agree. Problem is I have researched all USA surgeons mentioned here and ALL had credible serious complaints by supposed patients at healthgrades. Gross mistakes. I think the one that had the least number of complaints if you ignore complaints about her being money hungry was Dr. Towfigh. Just the fact that she is in Beverly Hills suggests that MONEY is her main motivation? What is the motivation of a surgeon who restricts himself to hernia repairs? At a center that he has a financial interest in? Many of them ask for money up front as well. Some of these guys won’t even accept insurance. I agree that practice makes perfect, you’re right about that. So why do these guys all have serious credible sounding complaints against them? Jealous competitors? Aggrieved ex employees? Hard to say really, but why would a surgeon do only hernia repairs? That in itself is kind of suspicious, don’t you think? Must get boring after a while? I would go to Shouldice but I won’t go to Canada.
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Your #1 priority should be to find a hernia SPECIALIST…i.e., someone who has done, and continues to do, a large volume of repairs each year…not a general surgeon or urologist who only does a handful in comparison. This is true regardless of the type of repair you chose.
You are talking about your health…it is worth investing in. I would absolutely go to a ‘so-called hernia surgery centre’ before I went to a urologist or general surgeon…neither of those would even be a consideration for me, *especially* if they are refusing to provide quotes, lying about repair numbers, etc. Those types of behaviours are not indicative of ‘quality care’.
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1. On 8/15/22 I wrote “Also I reached out to Dr. Sbayi. Hopefully by November he can provide you with new contact information where he can see his patients.” No mention of October. And I kept my promise.
2. Surgeons change practices all the time. They are often employees and are limited by their employers (e.g., the hospital) as to whether they can a) alert patients of their move and b) alert patients of their new position. Most employers (e.g., hospital) consider the patients as theirs, not the surgeons’, as the surgeon is only an employee. To shed a negative light on a surgeon who is doing his job and seeking a better opportunity to treat his patients is without evidence and borders on disingenuity.
3. A lot has changed since 50-70, including access to online information and the business of healthcare. Most patients did not travel for care and went to their local doctor based on word of mouth. There is nothing illegal about advertising or marketing. As with any business, it is upon the consumer to do their due diligence.
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Pinto:
Bull. English is the world dominant language. And China recognizes that. You don’t find USA people recruiting for chinese teachers. I think you’re the ignorant one.
IF Kang as you CLAIM (doubtful) speaks good English, why is he places “translators” (his word) between him and his prospective English speaking patients?
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I don’t believe it too uncommon for free fixes?
I know that Shouldice Hospital waves physician/surgery fees in cases of a confirmed recurrence…”Hernia repair for a lifetime. Guaranteed” is also stated on its website.
I can’t recall who posted it, but someone else mentioned the same was true of their surgeon.
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It’s a little different for a surgeon practicing in India.
Different currency, different costs, different way of doing things, so that is a valid reason to publish pricing information. I have no quarrel with stating prices, in fact, they should be ITEMIZED, not just ballpark or range. What I don’t like is the ali baba, coupon, discount 2_4one and other bs marketing techniques. -
Some will fix a recurrence. It gets a lot more problematic if another complication happens such as chronic pain.
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yeah you just NOW Oct 7 posted it. Last time I was online it was not here.
If you’re having trouble locating the video chatmates Towfigh
and Sbayi, maybe try here?12 pm#32676
drtowfigh
Keymaster
HerniaTalk LIVE is a weekly Q&A hosted by Dr Shirin Towfigh, hernia surgeon expert at the Beverly Hills Hernia Center, with invited special Guests to answer your hernia-related questions.Topic: Incisional Hernias: What, Why, How & When
Join us this Tuesday 10/04/2022 at 4:30pm Pacific time (GMT -7) as a Facebook Live (@Dr.Towfigh). You can also register to join via Zoom here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89619162243
If you do leave a message for her, ask her again why she has not told us the secret fate of her video chatmate Sbayi.
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Surgeons do not get paid to participate on forums…any time they give to us here, or through the HerniaTalk videos, etc. is on their own free time and we should be appreciative, IMHO.
Per the link near the top of my previous post, Dr. Sbayi completed his graduate surgical training at Seton Hall University in NJ (search his name, then click on the Education tab). He also spent over 1.5 years at Shouldice Hospital, where he went through their internal training program to learn the Shouldice repair and where he performed many hundreds of that repair.
I can’t emphasize enough that we must put the bad reports that we read into proper context…the few negative suture-related cases need to be weighed against the *hundreds of thousands* of repairs where there have been no such issues. If you do a search, you will find that there are also cases where people have experienced problems with a variety of suture materials including Prolene, silk, nylon, and natural gut…these cases are extremely rare too.
It is important to avoid assigning too much weight to such unlikely adverse events. There are many other risks that carry higher probabilities to worry about. Your last paragraph is quite right when you say “…but even that is uncertain”. We indeed have no certainty…we can just take steps to try and reduce the risks as much as possible. So far, the best way we know how to do that with hernia repairs is to select a well-trained hernia specialist who continues to perform a high number of the type of repair that we have chosen.
(Also keep in mind that Dr. Kang not speaking English is completely irrelevant to his skill/experience – the hospital accommodates foreign patients and we have a few people on this forum who have gone there and encountered very little difficulty with the language barrier – at least one of them made a very detailed thread about their experience before and after).
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I can’t speak to Dr. Sbayi’s reasons for leaving Stony Brook…but it seems illogical to assume he was fired, as the hospital continues to list his name on their website and there is no disciplinary action noted on the NY state website (https://www.nydoctorprofile.com/NYPublic/). Also, while he completed his general medical school education outside the USA, his graduate surgical training was completed in the USA (the same link will verify). He could have a very good reason for choosing to leave (e.g., relocation, opening his own clinic, family/personal reasons, etc.)
What I do know is that he also received training at the Shouldice Hospital, performed many hundreds of the repair while there, and he continues to offer it. Despite him longer working at Shouldice, at least one senior surgeon there has publicly recommended him to patients in the U.S. who wanted a U.S.-based option. IMHO, that is a good endorsement, considering that it would have been equally easy to just say something like ‘we can only endorse our own surgeons who work in our hospital’.
IMHO, it short sighted to not come to Canada because of the gov’t and Trudeau. They have *no* relevancy to your search for a quality hernia repair. Don’t let politics cloud your decision, as nothing changes for you as a patient if a different gov’t is in place here. Also, focusing on the ability to sue a doctor seems to be unproductive…you are better served to look for the best care, not the easiest route to sue in the unlikely event that something not only goes wrong, but goes *so* wrong that a lawsuit would be warranted.
Shouldice Hospital does use stainless steel sutures; however, that has not been identified as a problem in the literature. They have done *hundreds of thousands* of repairs with those sutures over many decades and AFAIK there is no good evidence from any reputable source that this is something that ought to be avoided. Having said that, if suture material remains a concern, then by all means consider a U.S.- or Europe-based option, where Prolene sutures are the norm.
There is a valid concern of not being able to choose your surgeon at Shouldice…however, it is worth noting the hospital’s training program and how that might compare to external options offering the same repair:
“All staff surgeons, regardless of their prior experience, are required to complete an extensive introductory training period, during which time they learn our specialized repair technique that requires the use of mesh in less than 2% of all cases. First, they must assist a Shouldice surgical team for at least 50 operations before they are permitted to perform the Shouldice Repair. As this gold-standard technique can take even an experienced surgeon several months to master, each of our surgeons must further complete up to 100 supervised operations under the watchful eye of a senior staff surgeon before being approved as the leader of a surgical team.”
Think about those numbers…within a matter of months, a ‘new’ Shouldice surgeon will be more experienced with that specific repair than the vast majority of external surgeons who do not exclusively offer that repair too.
If it seems that I push that hospital, it is mainly because I believe in the repair and that I believe it is difficult to replicate the training and experience/volume elsewhere (and I’ve had two flawless repairs there myself that have held up for many years now). I don’t see it as perfect…there are things I would like to see studied more or changed at Shouldice Hospital.
There are some external options (mainly in Europe) who perform what is likely a ‘high enough’ number of Shouldice repairs to be comparable in skill/expertise, although many perform some modification of the original repair that has been less studied (AFAIK, such modifications typically pertain to not touching the cremaster muscle and/or using two or three continuous suture lines instead of the standard four).
As for Dr. Kang, who I would strongly consider too (particularly given your location), perhaps you already know his hospital website which has contact info and fee estimates for international patients: http://gibbeum.com/abroad/From-abroad.php
If you are finding flaws/concerns with everyone mentioned on this site, then you are likely to find some with ANY surgeon you consider. My best advice remains to seek a high-volume hernia specialist…and to put any negative reviews or concerns you identify into the context of their overall numbers. When you read 5-10 bad reviews, but that surgeon has been practising for many years and has done a very large number of repairs, some bad outcomes and reviews are statistically expected, because there is no such thing as a 100% success rate over a long follow-up period, even for the ‘best’ surgeons offering the ‘best’ repair options.
Good luck – I hope this information is helpful and that you will find an option that puts your mind at ease and that yields a flawless outcome for you.
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Many surgeons choose to specialize in one thing (like hernias) because they genuinely want to become ‘experts’ in their job. You have a greater likelihood of a successful surgery with a specialist vs. a generalist (which is not to say that all generalists are ‘inferior’, but it is wise to play it safe and go with a specialist).
As for bad reviews, every surgeon is likely to have complaints of some sort. That is in part due to the fact that no surgery has a 100% success rate, no matter how skilled and experienced the surgeon.
I think it is important to keep in mind that hernia specialists typically perform a large number of repairs per year…so even if they are highly skilled and have a very small complication rate, after many years of operating they will still have quite a few patients out there who have a complaint of some sort…and thus there will be negative reviews to be found.
I don’t want to pry either…but is there a reason that you won’t go to Canada? Shouldice is an excellent option, but there are also very experienced surgeons in Europe (and some in the USA) who offer that repair or other tissue repairs. Dr. Samer Sbayi has unfortunately left Stony Brook in NYC, but I understand that he will soon announce where/when he will be taking patients again…he was trained at Shouldice. It would be nice to know more about why he left and why there is this delay though…
Since you are in the Phillipines, you might also consider Dr. Kang in South Korea. He has developed his own tissue repair and apparently is achieving very good results (http://gibbeum.com/main/main.php) and his costs are relatively low compared to some options in the USA. There is at least one thread on here where someone included a breakdown of their costs to travel and have surgery there.
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