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Has anyone had Dr. Menon do the surgery?

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Prostate Cancer
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Posted 11/25/2009 7:25 PM (GMT 0)
I know Sonny has.

Anyone else?

Mel

Posted 11/25/2009 7:34 PM (GMT 0)
Are you taking a survey or do you have some questions idea
Posted 11/25/2009 7:43 PM (GMT 0)

Steve:

I was tempted to just respond with a "yes."

Butg, actually:

I am seeking comments.

IF it turns out I have PC AND I'm a surgical case, I would seriously consider going to Dr. Menon (I live in Michigan).

Incidentally, someone on another group implied that he only does easy cases to pad his statistics. So I am also curious about that. I frankly doubt that. Sonny had a Gleason score of 3+4. Not bad, but if Dr. Menon only did Gleason <7, then he would not have done Sonny.

I have been told that he will turn down cases where he doesn't think surgery would do any good. Can't argue with that.

Mel

Posted 11/25/2009 8:40 PM (GMT 0)
Mel,

I had DaVinci with Dr. Menon back in 2006.  I was satisfied with him and with his facility.  I thought it was well run.  No complaints so far. 

Since you live in Michigan, if you have PC, it makes sense to me that you consider Dr. Menon.

I've followed your story and am hopeful you've been able to relax a bit.   

Dave

 

Posted 11/25/2009 8:44 PM (GMT 0)
Mel, most any good surgeon will not do surgery for PC if they know its too advanced for surgery to do any good.

Sonny went into it as 3+4 and came out a 4+3. I think he was very satisfied with Dr. Menon.

The "heard he pads his stats with easy cases" sounds like a silly conspiracy theory line of thinking. The guy is a top notch surgeon with an excellent reputation.

David in SC
Posted 11/25/2009 10:47 PM (GMT 0)
Mel,
I'm sure Sonny will chime into this thread but I've talked to Sonny on the phone and he was happy with Dr. Menon. He travelled from Orlando Florida area to Michigan for his surgery.

Larry in Tn
Posted 11/25/2009 11:03 PM (GMT 0)
I got a chance to talk to the first robotic LRRP patient in the USA, a patient of Dr. Menon at Henry Ford Hospital (Detroit). Younger guy and he was coming back for check up, he was playing golf a couple days afterward the LRRP and did not have any complaints...when I met up with him at an appointment there to see Dr. Menon on my ridiculous case of PCa.

Some patients have had to pay in cash I have heard, had a patient there I met also that day that had lost like 40-50 lbs., (using the meat diet thing-LOL), cause he was too big for the machinery...Dr. Menon advised him to lose the weight before he would even work on him...maybe this is another parameter (size!). He was motivated he lost that weight.

I got my second opinion from Dr. Menon and he basically refused my surgery, found out he is righteous man....my stats were ridiculous for successful surgery. Funny the other doc somewhere else the day before....said curative and 1% chance of incontinence to me. Beware of so called knowledgable docs...supposedly only interested in your best interests...I saw bias, agenda, lying in more than one of my 8 opinions. Notice I passed on the 1st one which had the words a patient wishes to hear, I was searching for truth not b.s. and pie in the sky. Do not be shy about questioning anything, you can be fed b.s. and seen other patients get railroaded by supposedly good docs. Some are great and some are not so great is the actuality out there. I did find some good docs and hired them, it was not nearly as easy I would have thought. smilewinkgrin
Posted 11/25/2009 11:27 PM (GMT 0)
Mel,

As the others have said I traveled a great distance to see Dr. Menon. I spent 2 days interviewing him and his staff on anything and everything about their procedures should I choose him.

It was a no brainer on my part. My insurance company said he is one of the highest rated for da vinci of any in the country. One of their key stats they keep is the amount of complications afterward. The fact that he has little to none speaks to his abilities.

The care and compassion of his staff is only second to the absolute concern, care and compassion of the man himself. When my surgery was complete it was he himself that called my wife back in Orlando and spoke to her at length about my surgery.

I consider my surgery a success even though I am now faced with IMRT. I don't consider it anything he did or did not do as a reason that some of the little bastich PCa cells are still left in me.

One more thing. His method of surgery and care and improvements mean you won't have to have a normal catheter. He has some very sound reasoning for doing away with the Foley and using the Supra Pubic catheter. The guys here at HW were amazed with my daily posts at my quick recovery, lack of pain and immediate success with continence following the surgery. Never took a pain pill and was walking 2-3 miles per day the day after I was discharged from the hospital.

I am not a salesman for Dr. Menon or Henry Ford Institute, this is just the facts about my experiences with him.

It has been clear that you tend to worry about a lot of the little things and the extremes that can happen. I really feel that you owe it to yourself to go see the man, talk with he and his staff and take that part of the equation of your worry list.

This is provided of course that "YOU FIND OUT YOU IN FACT DO HAVE PCA". Remember the jury is still out on that one.

It your tests come back with an extreme case of BPH or something else, you will have sure used up your yearly allowance for worry, concern, research, and gasoline that you have used in that race car of yours, which you have kept at full throttle.

Best of luck on the biopsy, may it come back clean and without merit.

Sonny
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