Dr. Boachie, Dr. Flynn, or shriners PA. (for a toddler spine operation)?

[lizhedgepeth]

Hello I am pretty new in this forum.
my daughter is 2 years old. she has been diagnosed with congenital scoliosis and we are having a very hard time deciding for a surgeon. Dr. Boachie is a wonderful doctor and person but we are a little concern due her age. I have a feeling that the majority of his experience is in adults and teens., but then again, a 2 year old baby with congenital scoliosis and a 47 degree angle is very rare too.
We are also considering dr. Flynn at CHOP or Shriners at Philadelphia
Any thoughts or recommendations will be highly appreciated
sincerely
Elizabeth

[LindaRacine]

Elizabeth...

Where are you located?

--Linda

[debbei]

Hello I am pretty new in this forum.
my daughter is 2 years old. she has been diagnosed with congenital scoliosis and we are having a very hard time deciding for a surgeon. Dr. Boachie is a wonderful doctor and person but we are a little concern due her age. I have a feeling that the majority of his experience is in adults and teens., but then again, a 2 year old baby with congenital scoliosis and a 47 degree angle is very rare too.
We are also considering dr. Flynn at CHOP or Shriners at Philadelphia
Any thoughts or recommendations will be highly appreciated
sincerely
Elizabeth

Have you seen all 3 of these doctors already? I really can't offer you much advise except that I wanted to tell you, when I had my consultation with Dr. Boachie last June, there was a toddler (patient) in his office who apparently he had been treating since birth. I know she had at least one surgery with him at that point. I think she was wearing a brace at the time as well, and she was toddling around like any normal little kid.

Good luck with your decision.

One more thing---if I were you, I'd outright ASK all 3 of the doctors how many toddler's they've done this type of surgery on. How else will you know unless you ask? They shouldn't feel offended.

[lizhedgepeth]

Thank you for your responses

We are in California but we are willing to fly anywhere to get the best care possible. this is a big desition for us

[LindaRacine]

Thank you for your responses

We are in California but we are willing to fly anywhere to get the best care possible. this is a big desition for us

Mohammad Diab at UCSF!

[kennedy]

you can most like go to shriners in northern california or in southern california

[mariaf]

Hello I am pretty new in this forum.
my daughter is 2 years old. she has been diagnosed with congenital scoliosis and we are having a very hard time deciding for a surgeon. Dr. Boachie is a wonderful doctor and person but we are a little concern due her age. I have a feeling that the majority of his experience is in adults and teens., but then again, a 2 year old baby with congenital scoliosis and a 47 degree angle is very rare too.
We are also considering dr. Flynn at CHOP or Shriners at Philadelphia
Any thoughts or recommendations will be highly appreciated
sincerely
Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth,

My experience has been with Shriners, Philadelphia. We first brought my son there when he was 5 years old, but they treat a large number of kids even younger than that. They do serial casting on infants, which perhaps isn't an option here because the scoli is congenital, but the fact that they have a casting program tells me they see a LOT of infants and toddlers. We've been going to Philly for over 5 years and I have seen infants and toddlers at just about every appt. we have been at. Hope this helps.

We considered seeing Dr. Boachie as well when my son was initially diagnosed in 2000, because we had heard the name, but felt that he saw mostly teenagers as well as adults (revision surgeries, etc.).

Dr. Flynn is obviously at a children's hospital. Although the only patients I know personally of his had fusions as teenagers, that doesn't mean he doesn't see a number of toddlers - I just don't have any personal knowledge about his practice - sorry.

By the way, we have been extremely pleased with Shriners.

Best of luck.

[LindaRacine]

Mohammad Diab at UCSF!

I should have been more specific. Dr. Diab treats only children, and has hundreds of them.

--Linda

[kennedy]

how about seeing dr lerman or dr gupta both at shriners in sacramento or dr gupta at uc davis spine center

[laurieg6]

Hi Elizabeth,

I am also a member of a congenital scoliosis yahoo group. Here is their email: CongenitalScoliosisSupport@yahoogroups.com

You might ask the question about doctors on there as well. Since you live in CA, one really great doctor I've heard about in LA is Dr. Skaggs. You can google him to find his phone number - I did recently and it appeared easily but I didn't write it down. Let me know if you have trouble finding him though and I can help. He's dealt with many really young kids with very complicated, congenital scoliosis from what I've been told.

Good luck,

[mariaf]

I've heard of Dr. Skaggs' name as well in connection with infantile and juvenile cases.

In addition to the other places mentioned (Shriners in CA and Philly, etc.), another name that comes to mind is Dr. Vitale in NYC (who has a particular interest in early onset cases) and also the team at Children's Hospital Boston.

[Scolimomof1]

Hello,
I am now trying to search for a doctor out of my state of Florida. If anyone has any suggestions of a doctor that deals with young (8) patients with a 60 degree curve, who has been braced for 2 years, please reply...we are desperate to figure out what we should do at this point. Thank you!:(

[mariaf]

I'm not sure if I understood you - are you saying you now are looking for someone "in" Florida?

The closest doctor I know that fits this criteria is Dr. Timothy Oswald in Atlanta. From all accounts, he's one of the best and deals with lots of younger patients. His contact info is:

Dr. Timothy S. Oswald
Pediatric Orthopaedic Associates, P.C.
Atlanta, GA 30324
404-321-9900
http://www.mypedsortho.com

[Scolimomof1]

Hello Mariaf,
I am sorry if that was confusing....I meant that I would like to go out of florida to get another opinion...my doc here has flip flopped on growth rods, he has said that yes, we should and then has said that he would not recommend them because of multiple trips back to the operating room. Now that her curve jumped 10 degrees in 3 months, I feel that time is of the essence. At this last appt. he said that he would order another MRI to make sure that he wasn't missing anything that could cause such an aggresive curve. But after that he said that he would see us in 4 months. So I really do not feel comfortable with this course of treatment.

[mariaf]

No problem, Liz. I was confused because at first we were discussing docs out of the state of Florida so I didn't want to answer the same question twice :)

Anyway, in addition to some of the names that have been mentioned: Oswald, Skaggs, Vitale, Betz (who treats my son and is by all accounts one of the top docs in the country for this type of thing), the only other names that come to mind, where I have any personal knowledge of the surgeon(s) seeing a lot of younger kids, would be Emans and Hresko at Children's Hospital of Boston.

I don't think you could go wrong with any of the above doctors - they are all the cream of the crop.