Shep247, glad to see you are taking the time and effort to find the best possible center of excellence and surgeon for your surgery. For myself, location was not going to be an issue - If I had prostate cancer (turns out I did, 55 years old, Gleason Score 7-4/3), I wanted to do everything possible to give me 30+ years of prostate cancer free life. I did a lot of research in determining the best possible center of excellence and then the best doctor at that center of excellence - Ended up with Mayo-Rochester and Doctor Igor Frank to perform the Radical Prostatectomy and Lymphadenectomy. For myself, I wanted to remove the known cancer and also have a post surgery pathology to define margins. Even if there are negative margins, there is no guarantee. However, the pathology provides critical information and guidance for possible post surgery treatment.

In researching PC centers of excellence, there are guidelines for what defines a center of excellence - Available on the web. Let me know if you can't find independent based criteria and I can help. Also, there are rankings for the different center of excellence hospitals.

For the surgeons, I set several criteria for my evaluation. I did not want a surgeon that spends most of his/her time research, I wanted a surgeon that has done thousands of successful robotically assisted radical prostatectomies. Dr. Frank was the first surgeon to perform the robotic RP at Mayo and the second in the country. He has been doing the surgeries for many years. I also did not want the manager, head of department. Before retiring, I was the engineering manager and I knew very well that I was not the best engineer, just better at financials/strategy/etc... My engineering teams were so much more skilled at tactically executing design work than myself. For a surgeon, I did not want the best manager, but rather the best at executing the surgery. When I did my research, this detail was readily available online.

Best of luck and please let me know if you need any assistance.

Jim