Is there such a thing as a surgeon's volume being *too* high?

[Rider1400]

And by the way I drew the short straw and have ran into major infection problems and I’m now doing 3 months explanted and will have my 4th surgery in 6 months in mid September, hopefully my last.But yes I still trust my Dr. if I can’t trust him there’s nowhere else to go that could handle it any better than he is doing. For sure nobody any more qualified than he is.

Rider, I am curious about the infection and how it went for you. Could you elaborate on what the course of the infection was like, symptoms duration of symptoms before you knew something was wrong? How long after the surgery did the problem develop?


I am seeing the doc in a month.[/quote



It was quite a nightmare…. First couple weeks was normal recovery. Around 3rd week I had a swelling and painful lump come up where my original reservoir was. Over a few days the lump migrated in a ridge about the size of your index finger toward my base of penis. Within a couple days I was getting chills and running low grade fever. Dr started me on two strong antibiotics and after 2-3 days the pain and fever stopped but swelling stayed. I used the 2 weeks of antibiotics and then he started me on 2 more weeks. At week 4 I was healed enough to start cycling but had a terrible sharp pain just under glans and up shaft about an inch. Dr and I both thought it was nerve pain so decided to wait another week. Around 5-6 weeks pain came back and we decided to do a salvage. I went into hospital 5 days prior to surgery and started IV antibiotics and then on 6th day had old implant removed and replaced with all new implant. They installed a pic line in my arm and went home where I got two IV antibiotics per day for two weeks. Two - three days after I stopped the IV antibiotics the incision started weeping and had puss seeping out of it so started antibiotics again. Dr was out of country on a medical trip so stayed on antibiotics for 1-1/2 weeks and went back in and had it removed. Had first surgery on Feb-25. Second (salvage) on May 13th. Then removal on June 17th. Now 4-1/2 weeks out since removal and incision is dried out and finally healed enough to start using a VED. No more pain anywhere and the lump is gone. Feeling better than I have in months. Now the labor intensive pumping with VED.Dr said if I will use it consistently for next couple months I shouldn’t loose any proximal length. Concern is the proximal parr will scar up and he will have to tunnel into distal part to open it back up. Hopefully the new prime should be available by mid September when I go back for hopefully my final surgery for many years to come

[wfr1952]

Thanks for the detailed response. Good that you haven’t given up

[whatevery]

I was planning to go with one of the superstar surgeons this forum raves about, but I figured I should give my local surgeon a chance first.

I ask him how many of these surgeries he does every year, and lo and behold he tells me he's #2 in the country for AMS (which is my preferred brand, I don't want a Titan). He also works directly with AMS and was telling me about these cool developments I should expect in the future, like to control or even schedule my future implant through a phone app 3 years from now. Which sounds amazing, but not amazing enough to postpone this amazing surgery.

Anyways, this is equivalent to like 150 to 200 surgeries a year. Obviously we want our surgeons to have 40+ (though I've seen some say 25+), but is there such a thing as too much? Or would you consider it to be a small positive, like 150-200 is even a a bit better than a mere 40?

Surgeons, including many who are considered to be the cream of the crop on FT & FB, customarily inflate their numbers and outcomes for marketing purposes. I know that for a fact. Many would also try to sway you to their preferred brand, irrespective of what you (and even they) think is better for you. That's why you should always double check your doctor's assertions on FT & FB because here you're dealing with real outcomes, not the ones they or their stuff would be feeding you with.

If an implanter is known for almost exclusively implanting one brand, I personally would stay away from him if I'd want the other, irrespective of what he's done in the past. Your experience MUST stay fresh imo, or you forget things, let alone his attitude towards your choice might be poor at the onset. Your high volume surgeon might not recall how he handled complications when they occurred in the distant past with the brand he currently almost never implants.

There is enough differences between the brands, let alone between implanting length expanding implants and not length expanding implants to warrant careful consideration of a doctor's experience and assertions, and measuring it against what you read here (or on FB).
Hakky told me that he would consider upsizing Titan, CX & X if that's what I wanted to do, but not LGX & AX. I wonder why? I'd be surprised if Clavell feels differently.