Quote from: laurenb on September 06, 2016, 04:56:32 PM
You'd think with our Boston medical community we'd be on the cutting edge (sorry maybe poor choice of words) of this. I'm on Cape Cod but would love to meet anyone/all of you. Please let me know if there's ever a meet up.
Lauren
Yeah, I work in biomed research, albeit on the other side of the river, very much in the belly of the beast.
The thing about Boston - or probably any center of research - is that they can get a very self-centered view of the world additionally while at its best MA is one of the most liberal states, our conservatives are very conservative indeed and physicians tend to run conservative in their professional thinking.
How this sometimes plays out was yes, we're the primary center of medical technology in the of the entire world. Just as the US has the arguably most advanced medical technology in the world and yet fails to deliver the best care all too often, so I'm not at all convinced that the research hospital always delivers the best care.
Hard example: coronary bypass surgery was invented here and as coronary angioplasty and eventually stenting proved to be equal and then better in outcomes than bypass surgery, Boston was the one place where this wasn't happening. Most of the early work was done elsewhere and only after results were demonstrably better did the techniques become widely adopted here.
The BMC team have been observing procedures at UMich and Baltimore, and the surgeons in those places, like Oates and Slama have amazing resumes and accomplishments.
Physicians and especially surgeons typically come extremely confident and with good reason, it's clearly a field that attracts excellence. So I was told twice by orthopedic docs that first my knee and then a multiply fractured collarbone wouldn't gain anything from surgical repair.
In the first case I was having a lot of trouble walking even a couple of miles and when I sought a second opinion I went to one of the most experienced knee surgeons around, someone who specialized in sports medicine. I was met by a guy who was a hell if a lot more open to listening to me and he returned full functionality to the knee such that I was able to return to rock climbing and began a period of training and doing triathlon.
When I busted the clavicle I was again told by the HMO doc that I should just let it heal and that I'd be out of climbing/training commission for 4 months -- basically an entire season with no exercise. It didn't take much research on my part to find that multiple fractures of the clavicle fail to ever fully heal 30% of the time and 80% involved significant change in the shoulder structure resulting in stress on other areas. So off to the same surgeon as had worked on my knee and I was back to climbing within 2 months of the original injury.
To what Karen said, This guy was certainly brusque, and as someone who's in high demand and doing research as well it's not hard to understand. The key difference for me was he clearly listened to me and allowed me to play a role in my own care. He also knew from the first go that I'd healed fast and worked hard after the knee work to get back to full function in record time.
I don't think anyone going to the BMC team is going to be disappointed, there's nothing I want more in a surgeon than someone who's cut their teeth doing advanced procedures and I'd far rather have someone at the top of their field.
I get to talk to Satterwhite exactly a month from today and should be scheduled to talk to the BMC team soon after that. Will drop a note to this thread as that happens.
