Would you travel several hours from home to a better hospital for surgery?

  Our local hospital is ok but it is a 3 star and my mom was not happy with the care I had last time I had a major surgery although I saw nothing horrible. Then again my mom was a nurse on the same kind of floor that I was on so I guess she would know. Last night at a friends house we were talking about her 5 year old who is severely disabled. They were told my our local hospital to take him home to die when he was born. Thankfully they were not satisfied with that so they drove the 4 hours to St Louis to see a doctor with Barnes hospital. One look and they said oh yeah we can fix this. He is 5 now and his mother will not see doctors in my city but goes straight to St Louis. Another church member has been diagnosed with lymphoma and decided to go to this same hospital to have a second opinion. So I have been thinking about having surgery at this hospital since people tend to go there when things are bad or they want a second opinion. I wonder if skipping the smaller hospital and going straight to the hospital people go to when things are bad because they are the best would be in my best interest. Does that sound weird?

I spent 46 days out of this past summer at the local hospital. Then they finally decided to sent me to a big city hospital 1 hour and 45 minutes away.  They did more for me in 4 days than the local one did in 46 days.  I will be going there from now on for any follow up. 

i went about an hour and a half away for mine, it was the hosptial my husband worked for, and its always good to be in the place your husband is a dept manager at, but also i am in a small town, and there arent' very many dr's to choose from. In fact, there wasn't evena dr here that does jpouches, even though thats not what i chose. I always went farther for my doctors.

I drove 8 hours away to go to Cleveland Clinic, Florida.  I had local general surgeons in my area, but not really specialized colorectal surgeons.  It was worth the drive and I'll go back to Cleveland Clinic if I ever have difficulties again.

butterfly

 Many people here say that when it is bad and you want the best you go to Barnes in St louis.