Dr Tewari or Dr Samadi

Ruby,
I was diagnosed this week, and saw Dr Samadi on Wednesday. I am interested in hearing what others say in comparing the two. As of now I am booked with Samadi. I found him confident and personable. Also a bit arrogant, but I sort of expect that of a guy so well known for his skill As far as skill is concerned, its a given, and my Primary Care Doc told me they are both excellent and either one I am with the best. So, without seeing Tewari, I would say its probably a matter of personal preference.

Regarding them running multiple rooms at once and having residents perform some of the surgery... I had that concern as well, I have heard that as well, third and fourth hand. One of the questions I asked Samadi was "do you perform the whole operation yourself? " He looked me in the eye and said "nobody touches the robot but me. I do everything from beginning to end, everyone else in the room is there to assist me. ". So I said "so you can assure me that you open me, fix, me, and close me, down to the last stitch?" He responded, I guarantee it, I am your doctor, and you are my patient, not just another prostate.
Today, I had a conversation with one of his staff. I asked about multiple rooms. I was told point blank, absolutely not. There is only one operating room running at a time, and one Robot. I asked how many surgeries he does a day, and was told 4-5 Robotic Prostatectomies, and after that it depends, how many other types of surgeries he does, like the surgery for bothersome BPH (I forget what its called).

We are at the same stage, seeing the same people, so if you are interested in comparing notes, feel free to email me and we can converse via email or phone. There is some stuff I'm not putting up publicly. CLICK THE TINTED ENVELOPE UNDER MY NAME TO GET MY EMAIL.
Good luck. This sucks, but its common and fixable.

Both are great surgeons. No wrong answer here.

I used Dr. Tewari. He performs the entire surgery. Other surgical assistants (nurses, anesthesiologist, etc) are in the room, but only he touches the DaVinci "console". He does not have multiple "rooms" at once.

From what I know personally of Dr. Tewari and what I've seen of Dr. Samadi, the difference is largely their personality. Dr. Tewari is very soft-spoken and gentle, while Dr. Samadi is more of a flashy and loud personality. I assure you that your prostate won't care about bedside manner.

Also note that Dr. Tewari is the only surgeon that I'm aware of that rushes the full prostate to the pathology department to immediately check for positive margins while the patient is still on the table. If a positive margin is reported, Dr. Tewari can immediately remove more tissue to get the remaining cancer. More info here: www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=3231055

-Gedman

Lupron Jim is right, and for that, Ruby, I apologize. My head is spinning from everything that has happened and that I have read this week, I should have pointed to getting a second opinion on the slides. With that said, it seems that you are quite educated on this already, so maybe I just assumed....

In any case, get the second opinion. It is so easy to do, and the results come very quickly. You can even speak with Dr Epstein personally after you get the report.

I know this thread is nearly a year old so my apologies for posting now. I was diagnosed with PC this past July. My PSA for the last 3-4 years was increasing steadily from 1.8 to 4.2. My, then, urologist had me do a free to total PSA and in one week it rose another point. 5 cores positive for PC out of 16, Gleason 3+4 for 4 cores, 3+3 for 1.CT showed no signs of spread so now I had to make a decision. Cyberknife was off the table. They quote statistics but from my limited investigation, Cyberknife has only been used to treat PC for 5-6 years .. I could be wrong. The "local" surgeon though intelligent with a 1000 surgeries under his belt didn't win me over. It seems Tewari and Samadi's names kept coming up. I made appointments with both Dr's Tewari and Samadi to which my wife said "how many surgeons are you going to see?" After seeing Dr Tewari, my mind was made up ( aside from the fact that Samadi and Tewari share some common staff) who pointed out to me that both Dr's were equally skilled but think of Samadi as "the energizer bunny" and Tewari as "the careful and slow-paced tortoise". Surgery was scheduled for Sep 18, 2015. My wife met Dr Tewari within minutes of finishing up my surgery. He was able to tell her that my margins were clear, no spread to the lymph nodes and that my overall Gleason score was downgraded to a 6. I had mild to almost zero incontinence and am currently working through ED issues with a fellow urologist, Dr Nagler. My post-prostate surgery PSA ( 6 weeks ) was <0.02 and I hope that trend continues. I'm doing well and I know that I chose the right surgeon .. for me. There are many skilled surgeons out there but you have to be your own advocate and choose what you feel comfortable with.

No this is not true. I have Emblem Health, and he accepts it, when i scheduled my surgery with him last year, his people called in and got approval within a few days. I'm pretty sure he takes most or all major insurance plans.

Ruby -

I had my surgery performed by Dr Tewari. He is chief of urology at Mt Sinai in NYC and his surgical technique is very similar to Dr Samadi's. I won't go into a great amount of detail here as you can do your own research. I had consultations with both and after doing a ton of research as well as being very impressed after both consultations, I chose Dr Tewari because he was very personable. You might wish to check whether he accepts your insurance. I have United Healthcare / Oxford and everything was covered. I had surgery on 9/18. Very little to no incontinence and I am working on the ED issue and feel I will eventually recover. My first post PSA was <0.02, which they say is non-detectable but we'll see how that goes.

Post Edited (aldenyc2015) : 12/18/2015 10:17:26 AM (GMT-7)

My boyfriend had surgery with Samadi in Dec of 2012. No issues, cured. We've gone back to the city ever since for PSA and exams. He remembers us, as does his staff. We've never had a problem and he has quick to answer questions and get back to us. In fact, after my boyfriend was diagnosed locally, we made an appt with Dr. Samadi to consult about surgery. We sent all his information in and Dr. Samadi called him personally, on a sunday, before he had even seen him, to talk about the biopsy results and information we had sent in. What doctor/surgeon takes the time to call you, unsolicited, on a sunday to discuss your care? We find him to be a great guy.

With a reminder that we don’t allow public bashing of Doctors on the forum, (for what should be obvious reasons), I’m posting a link for the benefit of any new guys who may stumble upon this thread. I don’t consider it reputation bashing because it’s public record and published by the US Department of Justice

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-123-million-settlement-lenox-hill-hospital-submitting

I’d rather not comment but will leave it here fir anyone interested to read.
Note: samadi is no longer associated with Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC. He is Director if Men’s Health at St Francis Heart Hospital, a Regional Long Island hospital, nationally known for its Cardiac Program , as the name implies.

Pratoman said...
With a reminder that we don’t allow public bashing of Doctors on the forum, (for what should be obvious reasons), I’m posting a link for the benefit of any new guys who may stumble upon this thread. I don’t consider it reputation bashing because it’s public record and published by the US Department of Justice

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-123-million-settlement-lenox-hill-hospital-submitting

I’d rather not comment but will leave it here fir anyone interested to read.
Note: samadi is no longer associated with Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC. He is Director if Men’s Health at St Francis Heart Hospital, a Regional Long Island hospital, nationally known for its Cardiac Program , as the name implies.

For those who like to dig a little deeper into this 'less attractive' side of modern US medicine, here is a link
https://nypost.com/2019/11/23/embattled-surgeon-dr-david-samadi-has-a-new-gig-on-long-island/

I’m pretty sure my surgeon was in the cleaning room with a nurse during my surgery. But that’s a another story.

Tewari...top drawer human being. (in my dealings with him)

This may be an old thread, but I don't think that it has lost its usefulness. Many come to this forum to seek just this kind of information while they're deciding on their treatment or searching for the right surgeon. Dr. Samadi did my husband's RP in August 2014--and I really wish that this thread and all its information had been available when we were researching our options. (I believe that this is actually the first time that I've identified my husband's surgeon on HW.)

Dr. Samadi may well have excellent surgical skills. There must be some high level skills there for so many people to agree that he and Dr. Tewari are top NYC surgeons. And he certainly has done a large number of these procedures.

That being said, we definitely had an issue or two with Dr. Samadi's care. For example, in our first post-surgery visit, the PA told us that my husband had negative margins. When we requested and received a copy of the pathology report, we learned that the margins were positive. When we asked, Dr. Samadi explained that the cancer was at the edge.

Subsequently our local doctor received two different letters from Dr. Samadi dated two days apart: one that said that the margins were negative, and the other identifying five focally positive margins. When we contacted Dr. Samadi for clarification, we never received a reply.

That was in November 2014. We have not been in contact with Dr. Samadi or his office since then other than our current attempts to obtain a copy of my husband's medical records. It does make me wonder how accurate Dr. Samadi's stats are since many of his patients are from out of the area or even from out of the country. I don't think there's any attempt to capture post-surgery info. (See below.)

There were other areas that were questionable but I won't go into them here. Suffice it to say that if you're thinking of going to Dr. Samadi--or indeed any surgeon for a prostatectomy--I would ask about these very important topics (this is in addition to the usual questions) so that you have some idea of what to anticipate:

--what is the surgeon's plan regarding lymph node dissection? Does s/he go into the surgery knowing in advance that s/he will only attempt to remove one LN from each side, or some other number? Does the removal number depend on Gleason score? Something else? How will s/he identify lymph nodes among the adipose tissue?

--same questions regarding plans for nerve sparing. Basically you should discuss what is most important--removing cancer vs possible side effects.

--how long is the surgery expected to take? You don't want the surgeon to rush or feel rushed.

--how many procedures will the surgeon do that day, and what number are you?

--will the surgeon be in the operating room for the entire surgery? Will anyone else be doing any of the surgery? Will the surgeon be supervising anyone in another operating room?

--how does the doctor track his patients for her/his stats? If so, for how long?

--try to get a feel for how communication is handled in the office. Are questions answered promptly and accurately?

There's probably more I could discuss but those are the highlights.

Melanie thank you for that. I find it excellent, and agree this thread hasn't lost its usefulness. Quite the contrary: it is vital for men, and their families.