Need Hospital/Doctor Recommendations

[Cheyenne]

I am new to this forum, but am needing some advice on surgeon and hospital selection. My daughter's surgeon has recommended surgery; however, I have not gotten a second opinion yet.

Did you get a second opinion and how important was that to you?
My husband also downloaded a Hospital Rating Report and we noticed that although we like our daughter's doctor well enough, the hospital where he performs his surgeries is a community hospital rated with a "poor" rating in orthodpedic procedures.

Given that we live in the Maryland area, I am now trying to get a second opinion from Dr Sponseller at Johns Hopkins, as I have seen a number of positive references to him in these message boards.

Please advise of your experience and/or recommendations. My daughter's surgery is presently scheduled with her existing physician on June 28 and she has already donated 2 units of blood, etc.

Thanks.

[mariaf]

Hi Cheyenne,

Since Philadelphia is a short drive for you, why don't you try the Shriners Hospital there. Dr. Betz or Dr. D'Andrea would be the ones to see as they are the two spinal specialists. I would highly recommend either of them. You'll see lots of other positive feedback here on them as well.

Good luck,

[Snoopy]

Cheyenne,

I had five opinions for my daughter before her surgery. Our fourth opinion was with Dr. Betz (that one Maria suggested; hi Maria!) and we planned on letting him do Jamie's surgery if our fifth opinion wasn't the doctor that met all of our needs. Dr. Lee Segal was our fifth opinion and he is awesome! Dr. Segal is located in Hershey, PA, so not too far from Maryland either. When we met with Dr. Segal for the first time, he asked us why we were there. He said we were in excellent hands with Dr. Betz, so why were we seeing him? What better recommendation could you get for Dr. Betz? We would have allowed either Dr. Betz or Dr. Segal to do Jamie's surgery and the deciding factor came down to location and timing. Philly is about an hour away from us and Hershey is only about 20 minutes and Dr. Segal's surgery schedule was easier to get ino. As for the two hospitals, I would have been very happy with either.

Feel free to contact me at Spinesupport05@aol.com.

Mary Lou