I don't know these Drs and I am sure they're both good. I spent alot of
time with my family at Weiss and honestly IMHO if it were me I'm go to
Northwestern. Something to be said for hospital too. JK is right but
I'd look at both experience of doc and hospital too.

on 1/6/2006 12:16 AM Glassman said the following:

I suspect the same thing that garners someone an invitation to play at
Carnegie Hall... practice, practice, practice.

Every journey begins with a first step.  The difference between the
Catalona's, Walsh's, Chodak's of this world and the merely competent is
that these doc's have focused their practices in a specific area and
they now do what they do best and let the others handle what they do best.

For something as complicated as nerve-sparing RRP, I doubt there is any
way that even a skilled surgeon who only does a half dozen of these
procedures per year can rival a reasonably competent surgeon who does
nothing but RRP's day in and day out.

It's in the numbers as you yourself intimate below.  If Dr. C or Dr. W
have performed 3,000 of these operations and had bad outcomes on, say,
20, that's less than a 1% "error rate."  Now look at the guy who's done
200 of them and had 4 problem cases.

One might argue that the more surgeries one performs, the more exposure
to failure the doctor has.  Probably so, given the numbers, but by the
same token the constant exposure to doing that particular surgery must
also improve one's skill and less the risk.

I think surgery is more an art than a science when you get right down to
it.  I can do most anything with wood but I doubt I'd be worth a damn
crafting anything in stained glass.  There's better wood butchers out
there than me and there are, for sure, worse.  Bet it's the same with
you AND the uro surgeons.

When I had the good fortune to be referred to Dr. Catalona, I received a
packet of names/contact information for some of his former patients (not
sure if he still does this) that I could call upon - much like this
great list.  It wasn't a little list, it was about 15 pages with men of
all ages from around the country which allowed me to find my geographic
and demographic "peers."  I wound up calling a few here in Illinois and,
naturally, they all friends or acquaintances who had joined this "club
nobody wants to join."  They shared stories with me of friends who'd
elected to go the RRP route with local surgeons in larger cities and
smaller ones.  They also told of some very unhappy folks as a result.

I doubt you'll find all that much difference between the uber surgeons
who specialize but just because a surgeon is skilled in bladder surgery
or penile implantation, I doubt that makes him a super star even though
he's still, by most standards, a very competent uro surgeon.

Among our group we have more than a few individuals with bad outcomes
from their surgeries.  I wonder how many, if any, here have had bad
outcomes with Walsh, Catalona, Chodak, et al?  Given the number of
surgeries these men perform (Catalona had about 2,500 under his belt in
2000 and was performing, I think, ~ 4 per week at that time)they should
be well represented here.

Bottom line:  There are super stars in this specialty and they get there
with skill developed through constant practice, practice, practice.
Those that don't continually hone that skill may be good but they aren't
great.

Bob - RRP 03/16/2000 by Dr. Catalona and that was the last time I had a
PSA to speak of<g>

About Chicago Magazine's List of Top Doctors...

Tdub correctly pointed out my goof-up:

"Actually, Ron, it's in the current (January) issue. I took a look at it
today and was pleased to see my doc (L.Levine) amongst the dozen or so
listed there."

Thanks for setting us straight.

Now the folks can get the RIGHT issue.  

Ron B.

Chicago