Getting a Second Opinion

Progressive Yoga Review When you receive a diagnosis that is urging you to consider open-heart surgery, making the decision for surgery and selecting a highly experienced surgeon suddenly becomes your number one priority. Short of an emergency, no matter how little time you have, please get a second opinion, even a third. You will be putting your life in this professional's hands. You owe it to yourself to investigate all the risks and benefits, to take it all in, to discuss the decision-making with several close allies, then - most of all -- to check in with yourself and to honor your own gut feeling.

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Two years ago, to weigh the options for a valve repair or replacement, I pursued three opinions. After deliberating with internationally known experts at the Mayo Clinic about my particular congenital heart defect's progression, I sought referrals from other health professional friends. I went online and found a support group for my rare congenital tricuspid valve irregularity, Ebstein's Anomaly, which provided me with firsthand patient reports on the well-known surgeon at the Mayo Clinic plus several more. Through professional colleagues I was referred to a surgeon to talk to at the Cleveland Clinic, another institution highly revered for its cardiac surgery. And last, after faxing the Mayo Clinic's 15-page test results yet again, I spoke with a noted cardiac surgeon at Boston's Brigham & Women's Hospital.

The result? Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, had been offering the recommended surgery route for Ebstein's Anomaly, based on a now-retired brilliant surgeon's technique, for twenty-five years. The current Mayo surgeon had studied at this man's side for ten years before his mentor retired. Now he was the experienced surgeon for this particular operation. Together they have completed 500 tricuspid valve repairs or replacements for rare Ebstein's. My conversation with the surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic confirmed that he would take a similar approach. The Brigham & Women's Hospital surgeon talked about an entirely new, experimental approach.