I was just wondering why a specific doctor is the go to guy (or girl) for a surgery.
Using Dr. Andrews as an example if you hear of any kind of arm or shoulder injury in NFL NBA WWE they all say go to Dr. Andrews. I know that in cases a person is an expert and would have done hundreds of the surgeries, but do they have some knowledge that no one else has and that makes them the person to think of?
It’s all about experience. I just had some fairly major surgery a couple of weeks ago, and selected a doctor that had performed that particular procedure 1,400 times. He knows what to do, he knows how to react if something goes wrong, and he’s seen a bunch of variants. It makes me comfortable.
Sometimes, also, it’s because the particular doctor came up with the procedure. Dr. Frank Jobe was (maybe still is) the go to guy for Tommy John surgery, because he did the first one and 1,000 more after that.
Once a doctor gets known for being good, people whose multi-million dollar salaries depend on the surgery’s success usually go with the proven doctor.
As others said, experience counts a lot. But this doctor in particular has a lot of connections. ESPN had this to say, “He is the alpha doc at the center of a sports-medicine network that extends well beyond doctors. Every athletic trainer, physical therapist, strength-and-conditioning coach in the land seems to have Andrews’ cell phone number. And he seems to take their every call, on a 24/7 basis.”
Thanks for the replies.
It’s surprisingly easy to get an appointment to Andrews office and see him.
Dr Jerome Groopman relates how he chose his own hand surgeon in his book “How Doctors Think”.
Basically, he found that “the #1 guy” didn’t actually do much of the diagnosing himself, and wasn’t very receptive to his concerns that the diagnosis and surgery suggested might not be best for him.
So he went to another guy, a new surgeon, who gave him the correct diagnosis, had a better bedside manner and proposed a more rational treatment…but had very little personal experience with that surgery.
He finally settled on a surgeon who had more experience of the surgery suggested by the second guy.
If you know you need X- go to the guy who does X.
If you think you might need X, but you might need Y- don’t go to the guy who only does X and has no experience of Y.
If you’re not sure what you need- go to the guy who is going to give you the most thorough work-up and investigation, so you can decide together what you need doing, and who is best to get it done.