How did you pick your surgeon?

[Grandesa]

I guess I am lucky to have the #2 and #15 urology hospitals in the US 20 minutes from my house. I picked #15 univ. of Maryland instead of #2 John Hopkins to do the implant because the surgeon is high volume. I am wondering how others made their decision? I only visited the 2 hospitals because they were close and fairly well ranked. I made my choice fairly quickly. I guess I am getting a little nervous as I approach the surgery date.

[radiodec]

My urologist/surgeon choice was based on the recommendation of family and friends for his other work. Though a very young doctor he has good recommendations, and does a moderate number of implants. I had the choice of another surgeon in the area that is definitely high volume. The hospital he works out of is a teaching hospital but does not have the overall ratings of where I chose. Another factor for me was that my post surgery follow ups would be with my surgeon not a PA or other secondary worker.

It did not hurt that there were also several other highly rated surgeons in his practice group. I am at 3 weeks post surgery, pain free, pleased with implant sizing and otherwise happy with my choice.

Radiodec

[phxbob44]

Experience is the best bet against infection and the best bet for proper euipment sizing and fewer complications...... Most of the experienced urologists have specific OR procedures to minimize the possibility of infection ... and its different than what a typical surgeon would use in the OR. Kaiser NW would not refer me to an experienced urologist saying their urologists can do the procedure.... which is technically correct but you don't know how experienced the surgeon is or trhat their infection rate is.... I appealed to Medicare but they stood with Kaiser. I went to Cleveland Clinic and paid out of pocket.... that's how important using an experienced surgeon was to me..... I'm happy I did....peace of mind....

[radiodec]

My urologist was an experienced surgeon, he just doesn't specialize in implants. He is recognized for some of his work in detection and salvage treatment after recurrence of prostate cancer. He also does quite a few nuero-stim implantations to cure incontinence in women. He did an excellent job on my wife and has done same with some of her friends and was excellent with one of their husbands and BPH. Not inexperienced as a surgeon, nor implants in general, just not a penile implant expert.

Radiodec

[danny1553]

If I had funds I would go with Dr. Eid.
He seems to care a lot about proper sizing . He does hundreds of surgeries per year and his "no touch" (or some name like that) has very low infection rate.