How To Choose a Surgeon, Doctor For Medical Surgeries (2024)

3. Uncover professional reprimands

Knowing if a doctor has been sanctioned bya professional licensing board should be anessential part of your search. For a $9 fee,the FSMB willprovide the disciplinary history of specificdoctors in any state (click Credentialing,then Physician Data Services on its website).

State medical boards also have doctor profiles that include board certifications, boardactions, criminal convictions and medicalmalpractice claims. TheFSMB has links tostate websites.

4. Check ratings, number of proceduresperformed and complication rates

ProPublica and Consumers’ Checkbook bothhave websites where they rate surgeonsand provide information on the number ofprocedures and complication rates, basedon recent Medicare data. To be fair to thesurgeons, both adjust their results to allowfor patients’ health status, age and otherfactors, as some surgeons take on sicker ormore frail patients.

Plug in your zip code at theProPublicawebsite,and you’ll find a directory of local hospitalsthat perform eight common procedures,along with surgeons on staff who performthem, the number of procedures they’vedone and their complication rates.

SurgeonRatings.org, from the nonprofitgroup Consumers’ Checkbook, provides amore comprehensive analysis that encompasses more than 5 million operations performed by 50,000 surgeons. It comparessurgeons’ results for 12 types of surgery.

How to interview a surgeon

After you have narrowed yourchoices of potential surgeons, it’stime to set up an appointment forthem to review your case, and for youto review them. Here are several questionsyou should be sure to ask and the types ofanswers you should get in return.

Can this be done with minimally invasivesurgery?

This technique entails insertingseveral thin instruments and a video camera inside the body through small incisions.The camera, which transmits images ontoa television monitor, becomes a surgeon’seyes as he or she performs the procedure.

Many common surgeries now can be donelaparoscopically through these keyholeincisions. There are many benefits — lesspain, quicker recovery, fewer infections,shorter hospital stays, less medication.Yet some surgeons aren’t trained inthese techniques, so they might not tellpatients about this type of operation.

“Toomany people are being cut open whenthey are ideal candidates for minimally invasive procedures,” says Marty Makary, asurgeon and researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

What percentage of these operationsinvolve open surgery, versus those thatare minimally invasive? What are thedifferences in complication rates andthe length of hospital stays for each?

The benefits of minimally invasive surgery vary by operation, and not everyoneis a good candidate for this approach. Theanswers to these questions will tell youwhich type the surgeon favors and why.“The same patient conditions can be treated with two radically different standardsof care, and the choice of which procedurematters,” Makary says.

How often have you performed this surgery, and do you specialize in it?

Whensurgeons perform certain procedures withregularity, they improve and are betterequipped to deal with complications. A2009 study, for example, found that therisk of serious complications from themost common form of gastric bypass surgery fell by 10 percent for every additional10 cases per year the surgeon performed.

Volume is especially important for new,uncommon or complex procedures. OneDartmouth College study found that among people undergoing pancreatic cancer surgery,annual death rates were nearly four timeshigher for those treated by surgeons whoperformed the fewest operations compared to those who performed the most.

More recent research suggests that specialization may be even more importantthan volume. A 2016 study in theBritishMedical Journallooked at eight complexprocedures. It found that specializing in aparticular procedure — for example, performing only heart valve replacements —significantly cut the risks of complicationsand mortality.