Complications And Surgical Experience

[exfatsowannabe 5]

I don’t mean to upset anyone, but I’m troubled and concerned. Reading about complications, I have come to believe some surgeons are jumping on the sleeve band wagon w/o long enough mentoring or fully understanding best practices for this procedure. I remember reading a WSJ article several years ago about a cardiac surgery clinic in India doing assembly line surgery on people that in many cases USA docs would deem far too ill to be surgical candidates, and having better outcomes than the Cleveland clinic comparing procedure to procedure. With the sleeve, I can’t help but believe people just have to fare better with surgeons who have done several hundred to thousands of sleeves. Are too many wannabes doing sleeves?

[Lissa 2,631]

I don't know the answer to your question. What I do know is that it is our job as patients to research our surgeons and physicians until we feel comfortable with our selection. So, maybe the better question would be: Are too many WLS patients failing to do their due diligence before choosing a surgeon?

With that said, ANY surgeon can have a complication. All it takes is for a stapler (the tool used to do the sleeve) to misfire and leave a gap that isn't found during surgery. Or, the patient could fail to comply with the post-surgical instructions by eating solid food too early, and cause a leak. Also, surgeons sometimes take on higher risk patients, and those patients can have more complications or even die. Is that the surgeon's fault? Or is it just the luck of the draw?

Having been a higher risk patient, with both blood clots and pulmonary embolisms, I am truly grateful that my surgeon did my surgery. We did as much as possible to eliminate risks, but there still were huge risks to my surgery and I truly believed I would not live through mine. I was okay with that, though, because I would have died within a year without the surgery.