What has me really vexed is how someone chooses a surgeon to perform one very important surgical procedure. It’s not like I can see his handiwork in someone’s kitchen or on their walls. So what kind of real criteria, other than some of the information posted earlier this month, will help me out in choosing “The One?”
Good question… I had a friend send out a group email to the “community” soliciting recommendations. I’m glad it’s not real estate or else her phone would be ringing non-stop. Many have recommended surgeons from reputed hospitals… not sure how many I’ll call.
OK… so here’s my plan for now. First, I’m going to need physical therapy so I’m going to call about 3 places, hear what they have to say, and perhaps I’ll find out from them what kind of experiences patients of theirs have had with different surgeons with whom they are familiar.
In addition to the questions above, I’m also going to look at different hospitals. One of my friends is a nurse and she can’t help but want to try to help me out since she cares about me. She mentions one of the surgeons in her hospital as “the surgeon that one or two of the other doctors have gone to with their knee problems.” Not bad for a recommendation.
I’m still not clear how to choose. I like the attentiveness of Dr. Z. He’s great, really. I have the highest recommendations for Dr. Zambetti who is also Fordham University’s team doctor. He’s a good guy and been performing surgeries for 20 years. What I’ll probably do is ask more family members as well and see what falls out of the tree. As of right now, I still need to find out what really are the facts. I think I know them but I’d also like to be as informed as I can be in the process of choosing a type of surgery.
On that note, I think I’m going to rule out Dr. Kiernan only because he does the hamstring graft, which I’m not necessarily a fan of since it seems to stretch easier and doesn’t seem to me to be that much less invasive than a patella graft—still the gold standard including amongst athletes.
OK.... making little steps but it seems we are left with patella autografts and achilles allografts…
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