Dr Kramer's relief

[Lost Sheep]

Cnidium suggested (page 2, post 7 of the thread "Bent Implant" which ran off-topic) a new thread for an off-topic subject.

The subject was Dr. Kramer's distancing himself from his usual close email and telephone contact with patients, former patients and prospective patients.

Dr. Kramer wrote:
A few specific patients lately have just personally absorbed massive amounts of time, with exceptionally long emails, hundreds of phone calls, and detailed complaints and specific device questions that eliminated by ability to do virtually anything but spend full time addressing their personal needs.


I expect Dr. Kramer will take a refreshing (and well-deserved) vacation and come back with renewed energy. He has devoted countless hours to all our needs and even more to our welfare, sometimes without expectation of compensation. No wonder he is reevaluating his policy.

[alibaba]

I really truly do not know how he does it. The only hours I have not received a call or email from him are between 12:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Surely the man needs to have a life of his own and time to unwind, even sleep. 3 months ago I wondered if he even has time for family. Certainly dedicated to his trade and can benefit from all the useful, factual information we can share w/o having to ask him the same questions over again. Possibly everyone could benefit from a question and answer page. Just a question and the answer to it for reference. There has to be some aspects of an implant that are finite enough for that. The variable aspects are another matter being persons reaction and impressions are different. Just my 2¢ worth but being a capitalist I am holding out for the highest bidder until I see some deserving soul needing help, then will give it away. Cheers. d

[Cnidium]

I like Kramer, he is one of the only two surgeons I am considering for an implant.

However, I do question the reality of his practice of being so responsive and open to contact with his patients. I am not saying this is a bad thing, IMO its a very good thing to do. But is it sustainable? I would think that being a high volume surgeon, Kramer would reach a critical mass of patients where statistically the number of potential patient's contacting him post-surgery and the number of questions / concerns / complaints would eventually add up to an incredible amount of time.

What does Eid do different in this scenario part of his practice?

[Pine85]

I remember asking Dr. Kramer how he can be so involved with so many patients at one time, and he just laughed a little. One has to keep in mind that Dr. Kramer is involved in teaching and many other programs at the University of Maryland as well. I think a great Physician's Assistant could help Dr. Kramer out tremendously in many aspects of his practice. Hopefully, this is just a temporary overload for him.

[merrix]

I like Kramer, he is one of the only two surgeons I am considering for an implant.

However, I do question the reality of his practice of being so responsive and open to contact with his patients. I am not saying this is a bad thing, IMO its a very good thing to do. But is it sustainable? I would think that being a high volume surgeon, Kramer would reach a critical mass of patients where statistically the number of potential patient's contacting him post-surgery and the number of questions / concerns / complaints would eventually add up to an incredible amount of time.

What does Eid do different in this scenario part of his practice?

You are making a good point. I was never a patient of Kramer. He was on my shortlist with Eid and Perito. I removed Perito from that list for reasons, and Kramer removed himself by never responding to my enquiry. But from reading here, it is of course obvious he is a great surgeon and a really nice guy.
I have never communicated with Kramer myself, but I have in PMs been forwarded emails that Kramer has written to other FT members. And I can compare them to all the emails I have gotten from my doc, Eid.
And there is a difference. I was always amazed by the length of the Kramer emails I saw. He really lays out the text and can, from what I have seen, easily write dozens of lines in an email which is (or could have been) a quick reply to a direct question.

Eid (based on my communication with him), is different. He is extremely responsive as well. No matter when i have contacted him, via email or SMS, and no matter how long after the surgery, he has always responded within a day. We are around 12 hours apart in terms of time zones, so sometimes an hour response time from his side still means almost a day for me. But he's always been extremely fast.
But - he is also shorter. He gets right down to the issue. Often he doesn't even bother to write a greetings phrase. Heck, he sometimes even doesn't bother to put a capital letter in the start of a sentence. He just cuts straight to the point. Short and concise. But always providing the information asked for. I get the feeling that he often replies the emails on the run. Maybe from his phone. Which is a good way to avoid lengthy emails... Of course he throws in some 'glad to hear you're doing well' etc as well. But he still keeps it all short and direct.

In my case, being the way I am, I have no issue with his direct style. When i contact my doc, I want to get my issues answered, and get those answers fast. And Eid does exactly that. For me it wouldn't add much if he wrote a few lines about the weather in New York, asking me how that holiday I told him about worked out, etc.
I would rather find that strange, since I would assume these guys are extremely busy.

It is a fact that any day only has 24 hours for each and everyone of us. Which means that every minute spent on 'meaningless but polite' conversation is a minute less spent on sleep, education, family time, surgery, research, seeing patients or whatever. There is no way around that fact. If you spend 1 minute instead of 5 minutes on writing an email, it will mean you spend 1 hour instead of 5 hours writing 60 emails. And those 4 extra hours can be used for your family, research, stress relieving activities (such as taking a walk in a park, working out, watching a movie...) or whatever.

So maybe Kramer, being the way he is and only meaning well with his best intentions, has set himself up for this. After all, he has done over a thousand of implants. If he gets emails from all those patients telling him about their lives and wives, updating him on their lives in general, that is a hell of a waste of time for Kramer to read all those thousands of emails. Even worse so if replying to them.

Personally, I wouldn't bother my doc with such nonsense. I would simply think that if all other patients wrote him this nonsense, then he'd be overloaded. I feel it lies in our responsibility as patients to make careful use of the trust we have been given when shared their email addresses and their phone numbers. If we abuse that trust, sharing all sort of irrelevant info with them, then things will eventually crash and there will be changes in their responsiveness.
And as professionals, they must set boundaries and limit their screen time. They are firstly there to treat patients and respond to real medical issues and questions. Not to chit chat with us about our families, holidays etc.

I would also like to say that I think it is remarkable how some people here goes out on FT and ask this assumed one patient in Florida to stop bothering Kramer.
None of you could possibly know the true story. And IF this patient has been treated poorly and Kramer has screwed up with him (which of course even the best can do on a bad day), then he has all the right in the world to 'bother' Kramer. I would say far more right than a happy patient has to update Kramer on his 'life and wife'.

[ThePlumber1964]

You are painting an interesting perspective here. All this bothers me, a lot, at many levels.

However, as a patient I lean more towards the idea that this should be left to be resolved between this mysterious person and the surgeon; actually, it is the law, with dire consequences if violated.

How was this leaked? How much is this reality vs exaggeration? As one of his patients, I trust that Kramer has the ability and maturity to handle it by himself.

[Moman17]

To whom it concerns:

I have spoken to Dr. Kramer and can attest that there is not truth in all that is posted by some members. This seems to be the case as usual that has been conveyed and exaggerated beyond scope.

Some very good perspectives here guys but all fall short of whom Dr. Kramer is as a person and surgeon. There are some that I guess you could say should have known they were abusing access and resources to Dr. Kramer; if they did not than they should have known it.

Dr. Kramer CARES deeply about his patients and shows an equal amount of appreciation and respect for those contemplating on trusting him with their lives and you have stated such by his time taken to care and respond to every person.

These posts here (while interesting) assume that Dr. Kramer somehow is ignorant or stupid in his practice and he somehow like a kid "just discovered" he is not mature enough or lacks that intuition to see an "avalanche" or "critical mass" of communications and as an amateur he is throwing a tantrum or some type of "break down"... All of these are just plain wrong, end-of-story...

He is one of the most talented, highly regarded, renowned surgeon and among the kindest and most cordial that you could ever meet in your life but above all the is a professional and a damn good one at communications and see's the importance of quick and close contact with his patients, but when he (like anyone of us) see's he is wasting his time and being abused by a (person(s)) he should and did silence their communications.

As an AT&T technician I have thousands of customers that contact me and often daily but can easily respond to them and those that call me for stupid crap and abuse me like their local "pc" guy about remote controls and etc. I will simply ignore them and it's not because I just discovered my weakness or lack the ability to foresee a "critical mass" of customers... It's the fact that we all have to be respectful and reciprocate kindness and professionalism; don't be an asshole and assume his only focus is on just "you" but realize how special your relationship is and treat it as such!

Any potential patient, past and current should not perceive this "silence" some have as indicative of whom Dr. Kramer is and should be treated for face value for those effected.

Deepest and Sincere Regards to Everyone here.

[Tybeeman]

As I have said in pass post, I do not know Doctor Kramer and I wish i could get an implant from him. I am a business owner and I had to make a change in my policy of receiving calls. I can only be reached by text or email. Some people call just to bull shit. These guys have no time, as I do not, during the course of a working day to talk about life, wives or anything that doesn't have to do with a the implant or business at hand. Now if I am texted or emailed something that is in need of talking with someone i will take a call. I am sure he faces the same problem. So with anyone that is a professional be aware of their time and if what you are calling them about is just to bull shit.

Just for the record i had a question last week and out of the blue I send him my question in one line sentence. He answered it with in 30 seconds with a one line answer. Just reading he sound like a super individual.

[David_R]

Some people call just to bull shit.

I remember when cell phones were just coming out I saw a situation (I cannot remember if was real or just a comedy scene) where a teenager's cell phone rings. As s/he answers, this is the conversation I heard: "Nothin'. What are you doin' ? Uh, OK."

[jonbaldbg]

I can attest to the fact, that Dr. Kramer gives thorough, sometimes long answers via Email. While that was helpful to me and at times put me at ease, it was not something I intended to go on forever. Eventually his patients should stop emailing him and get on with life like I've done. Frankly, I'm not happy with the results of my implant, but I don't blame this on my doctors, I blame it on loss of length from Peyronies. I had hoped the implant would restore my length.

Anyway, Dr. Kramer is a big boy and can determine on his own how long to make his emails. My other surgeon, the one who did the revision, gave short specific, sometimes too cryptic messages, but he did communicate. That is all that is really required.