Looking for the right one...

So how does one find the ‘right surgeon’ to replace your knees?  It is doubly difficult when you do not live in a metropolitan area with many medical facilities.  It is most likely four times as difficult when you live on an island on the edge of the Pacific Ocean in Alaska.  Though we have terrific basic medical care and even access to a lot of surgical procedures, knee replacements have not made it to Sitka on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago. 

Armed with the best internet I can buy (OK, the kids say it is really slow and that I should quit being a tightwad and upgrade our service) I search for surgeons in the northwest part of the US.  Like many Alaskans, I have a bias against hospitals in Anchorage and Fairbanks, our two ‘metropolises’ though I have gotten terrific care from an itinerant surgeon who lives in Fairbanks.  For anything major, most folks in my neck of the woods prefer Seattle.  There is a dizzying amount of orthopedic surgeons who could the work.  So how do you choose?

Of course, falling for the crass advertising works every time!  A doctor with an amazing resume, like way above anyone else’s that I could find, also had a video of a guy pounding down a double diamond ski run with knees that had been replaced like mine had been.  A few years ago, largely on the basis of this video I met with him.

At the University Med Center in a less than on hour appointment he told me that one knee (the one that was no longer tracking correctly, which will get much worse…) was clearly in line for a procedure, but the other (which hurt like a SOB) did not need any work, that the surgery really hurt and could make guys like me cry, but 80 year old ladies could probably handle it better, and oh, by the way, they should really take down that video because the implants really only work on flat ground.  I was hooked.  He tells me that I should wait, but that when I was really ready, he would have me on the table within 30 days.  In spite of his less than stellar bedside manner, I kept seeing that guy skiing down the mountain and knew relief would be less than a month away when I was finally ready.

Or not, as I discovered this winter; I could not even get an appointment for three months (note: 90 days!).  I could not actually have surgery until sometime in June and he did not do double knee replacements.  With a trip to Mexico in April/May and two kids graduating from college in June (with a celebratory trip to the high desert in Utah!) I needed these bad boys fixed, well, and now.

Hence, the referral process!  A delightful woman at church had both of her knees done and was constantly telling me how great her surgeon was, in spite of the fact that I could find no skiers on his website.  And while I could not operated on in 30 days, I could get an appointment in three weeks and surgery fairly soon thereafter. I decided to make an appointment in both offices, two months apart, hedging my bets.  I really want to ski.  Never have before, but gosh, it looks really fun.