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Has any one had an implant performed by the VA at La Jolla, San Diego? I have been approved by the VA to have the procedure after all other methods have failed (been 5 years since my surgery).

Also, are there any other doctors in the area that are recommended? I would like to talk to a few doctors. Not sure if the VA would approve for me to have the procedure done by a civilian doctor, but I figured I should do my research just in case.

Doctor Goldstein is in your area. San Diego Sexual medicine.

Before totally discounting the VA check to see if any of the doctors also cover the VA my surgeon is among the high volume implant doctors not necessarily the most well known.

Many fine surgeons work with the VA and a lot of VA’s are associated with medical schools so they also attract some of the brightest and best doctors as kind of professional overseers of new doctors. As stated above my own doctor may not have done the whole procedure but he was there. Even the more famous surgeons had to start some where

If you’re not comfortable with that check to see if you can use the Veteran’s choice program.

I’m very happy with the results of my surgery

Good luck

So it has been some time since I posted. I scheduled for surgery Friday, May 28th. Still a little apprehensive. Dr. T. Mike Hsieh, MD will be performing the procedure. At least that is what I was told. There will another doctor who is performing her residency (5th year) in the operating room. So I am not sure if she will doing the surgery and Dr. Hsieh overseeing.

I have not had many conversations with the doctors. I originally screened in October, but because of Covid, it took this long to schedule.

So a few questions:
1. I was told by the doctor that the type of implant will be determined the day of the surgery. Is this normal? I would have imagined we would have already discussed this.
2. We really did not discuss the length or RTEs, so I guess all this is decided the day of surgery.

It seems very impersonal. I would have imagined to have a more doctor/patient relationship, so that worries me. I feel like I am just another number. Next.

Anyways, I may still call it off, but as of now its a go.

Hsieh is great. You are in good hands!

No where in Dr Hsieh bio does it mention specialize in implants. Dr Boyd and Dr Loh Doyle do over 250 a year. I would check to see if USC/Keck interfaces with vetrans admin. Short drive to be seen by implant specialists.