Hey All!
My daughter seems to have a curve progressing about 5 - 6 degrees per year post-bracing and after she stopped growing, so the team (her, parents, doctors) are all leaning toward surgery at this point - posterior fusion for 8 vertebrae, 1 lumbar and 7 thoracic. We live in the Bay Area (CA) and my daughter's highly respected doctor is at Children's Hospital Oakland. I'm doing my research now, pulmonary specialist, second opinion at Stanford, talking to the school (she's a sophmore in high school) and here's my scary thought:
Complications at this hospital for this surgery (our surgeon is the only doc performing fusions here, he does between 40 and 50 a year) are all lower than the state average and the four area hospitals that have this surgery performed, until you get to the 2 categories of miscellaneous complications and unexpected events. At that point, this hospital gets 5 - 8 times as many complications. Supposedly they take into account that many of his surgical load is the much more serious and challenging cases, but.....it's a little scary. Tried to find out what falls into this category and it can include: UXE (infection, rupture of stiches, internal bleeding, etc) and MISC (post-op bleeding, post-op fistula, unhealed wounds, and other possible poor post op care complications).
Spinal fusion for my 15 1/2 girl, who is doing amazing in a hard as hell school, runs competitively and has a pretty decent life is scary enough, but what happens when you hear from all these doctors all over the area how great your doc is, you have a three year relationship with him and you find out that the hospital may not have great post-op care??? He does not operate any where else that I know of, but this hospital may have some post-op infection issues...
Any thoughts?
- Martha K
Fremont, CA
My daughter seems to have a curve progressing about 5 - 6 degrees per year post-bracing and after she stopped growing, so the team (her, parents, doctors) are all leaning toward surgery at this point - posterior fusion for 8 vertebrae, 1 lumbar and 7 thoracic. We live in the Bay Area (CA) and my daughter's highly respected doctor is at Children's Hospital Oakland. I'm doing my research now, pulmonary specialist, second opinion at Stanford, talking to the school (she's a sophmore in high school) and here's my scary thought:
Complications at this hospital for this surgery (our surgeon is the only doc performing fusions here, he does between 40 and 50 a year) are all lower than the state average and the four area hospitals that have this surgery performed, until you get to the 2 categories of miscellaneous complications and unexpected events. At that point, this hospital gets 5 - 8 times as many complications. Supposedly they take into account that many of his surgical load is the much more serious and challenging cases, but.....it's a little scary. Tried to find out what falls into this category and it can include: UXE (infection, rupture of stiches, internal bleeding, etc) and MISC (post-op bleeding, post-op fistula, unhealed wounds, and other possible poor post op care complications).
Spinal fusion for my 15 1/2 girl, who is doing amazing in a hard as hell school, runs competitively and has a pretty decent life is scary enough, but what happens when you hear from all these doctors all over the area how great your doc is, you have a three year relationship with him and you find out that the hospital may not have great post-op care??? He does not operate any where else that I know of, but this hospital may have some post-op infection issues...
Any thoughts?
- Martha K
Fremont, CA
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