How important is surgeon’s support staff

Posted by Goodvida @malligood, 3 days ago

I’m recently diagnosed with Gleason 8 and exploring my options. I’m not 100% there but leaning toward RALP. My original urologist , Dr. Kozin is at Piedmont Hospital. I think he’s a great surgeon done over 2000, if I decide to go that route. I’m concerned about the staff and the hospital. It’s only him and one nurse along with a scheduler . When I’ve had questions it always takes a couple of days to get a response from the nurse. How important is the team here? It seems if all goes well, I spend one night in hospital, come back in a week to have catheter removed then I don’t see him for 3 months. But if there’s a problem….

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charlesprestridge | @charlesprestridge | 3 days ago

I am 4-weeks post RP surgery. Treatment at City of Hope (for the past year) has been great.

Everything is done in-house and all areas work together well. This included Radiation Oncologist, blood work and labs, MRI and PSMA PET, portal questions, paperwork, etc.

I usually get answers to any questions within minutes.

However, if your surgeon performs an excellent surgery, that is most important.

Retzius Sparing surgery can be a big improvement. My surgeon converted to this technique over 2 years ago. This is very helpful for urinary continence.

Best wishes as you evaluate your options.

I would not hesitate to travel long distances to be treated by an incredible surgeon and treatment center.

wheel1 | @wheel1 | 2 days ago

Most important is your surgeon being excellent. Now excellent surgeon’s usually have great reviews, great reputations, great respect and are highly thought of. These Surgeons are there for their patients after surgery too and that is why they have their reputation’s. Now if your requests previously were routine maybe that was the delay. Certainly the nurse is the gatekeeper. If concerned specifically ask your Doctor if you need him after surgery will he be immediately available.

TurtBean | @turtbean | 2 days ago

Agreed that the most important piece is the skill of the surgeon. To me, that’s Job 1, everything is else is gravy.

That said, excluding the COE where I was treated, every single practice both I and my wife have dealt with (and it’s been a lot) have had at least one person on staff who made being a patient there a total PITA, and we’ve both left practices because of it.

It’s always either the nurse, the scheduler, the office manager, or the billing office. We’ve had nurses lose important digital media, schedulers not call back, billing offices make huge mistakes and send collections agencies, incorrect codings that caused insurance to balk at paying, billing the wrong insurance, failure to return calls, you name it.

We never dropped a stellar doctor who’s care and skill we trusted, but for those doctors who were in that average range, as soon as the rot in the practice started to show, we moved to a new doctor.