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Questions to ask surgeon about non mesh
I have an appointment October 5th for non mesh open repair for my right inguinal hernia. This is the first time I’m getting surgery and I don’t think I asked sufficient questions. All I said was I did not want to mesh and he said that’s fine he could do without mesh scheduled me and that was it. I make another appointment for September 20th but I need to know if you guys could give me a list of questions to ask.TIA AL
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3 Replies
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@Al mundo, are you seeing a hernia specialist or a doc, say, at a general hospital? Could it be that he normally does mesh (?) but agreed to do non-mesh. If so, I would be keen to note if he ever said, “I recommend …” It’s unclear your doc’s speciality. If he normally does mesh, the “I recommend” statement is important because it may shift more responsibility for outcome onto the patient. Further if he is a mesh doc then you ought to find out how experienced he is with pure tissue repair. Whatever his specialty, it would be worth finding out his stats–how often he does pure tissue repair and success rate. That may lead into talk of risk and related policy.
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I debated this before having my surgery. I actually ended up going with the guy who seemed more “rushed” and not interested in getting into detailed questions. Why? He specialized in hernia repair with very good reviews, performs dozens of surgeries a week, head of trauma surgery at a local medical school, and had a lot of experience in complex mesh removal (not what I was having done, but at least I knew he was aware of the issues with bad hernia repairs).
At the end of the day they are going to do what they do, and I think what gives you the best odds of a good outcome is making sure you have someone competent with a lot of experience.
After verifying their competency and experience, I would ask about what methods are going to be used and what are the potential complications and options to resolve any complications.
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You gotta ask this–Pose this scenario: It’s Friday afternoon and you have two phone calls but can only take one. Which do you take? One is calling to make an appointment and the other is a patient with a complication from your surgery. Who is more important? His present patient with a pressing need or the potential increased income? Unfortunately I didn’t ask this when I met my surgeon but I found that in my case, he apparently favored commercial promotion over my pressing need. In other words, you need to get his/her take on how much interest they have in their post-surgery patients. You will find in various stories here at HT that some surgeons run away from their responsibility toward ailing patients. I hope yours is not of that ilk.
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