Ortho Doctor issues

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Vicky67

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Hello everyone. :wave:I have question and would like to know your thoughts. I received my medical recorRAB from my Ortho doc. Since going to the neuro doc and being diagnosed with failed back syndrome. Something my ortho doctor has yet to tell me he keeps saying that everything is fine and I'm fusing and I'm not at all. I started to wonder what went wrong with my surgery, when I came out of surgery my left leg was totally nurab and painful all the way down to my toes and a little nurabness on the outer side of my right foot. The funny thing is that I didn't go into surgery with these issues. I had a fusion from L4-S1 and a lami for nurabness on the outer portion of my knee and some sciatica issues but not severe. When I was overlooking the notes from the surgery it had a space for the surgeon performing the surgery it wasn't my doctor. I do go to a teaching hospital here in Charlotte. Is anyone familar with this type of practice do they not inform or ask the patient if they mind if a resident performs the surgery. I would have never agreed to that. I'm just wondering this surgery has really changed my life and I don't mean for the better either. Sometimes it's very hard to accept things when you don't have any real anwers. I will be making an appt to go back to the ortho doctor and tell him about this new diagnoses that I have received to see his reaction and hear what he has to say. :mad:
 
Vicki,

I'm sorry to hear that you have failed back syndrome. My daughter's pediatric ortho doc always has residents in with him and I know we go to a teaching hospital. So during one of our appointments I asked him since this is a teaching hospital, who would be doing the surgery. He told me that my daughter was his patient and he would be doing the surgery. So I guess we were lucky. cas
 
I'm wondering if the resident did the surgery with your doctor "standing by" and observing. Seems that they'd have to let you know it would be a surgeon other than your doctor, however I've been in situations where I never meet the co-surgeon or resident but I later know they were in the OR.
 
whoever actually "signs off' on the op notes(there should be either an electronic or when the recording was done,and indication of who actually gave that narative?)right above the actual surgeons signiture,that would indicate who actually did the real surgery. when someone else is actually also doing any surgery there are usually two signitures. the head surgeon will usually have the 'underlings' do the actual op notes tho in some cases. just reading it will kind of indicate alot of different things tho.

i too went thru a teaching hosp for my spinal cord surgery and was told that my actual head of neurosurgery neurosurgeon was going to do it personally.BUT when i read thru the op notes,it became very apparent that someone else did the majority of my surgery but stated that my actual NS was standing right there helping him during it. reading the actual op notes and what is stated and the way it is stated gives you a pretty clear indication of just who actually did the main part of the surgery. the op notes in my case were actually dictated by the NS who did that surgery and was signed off at the bottom with my own NSs signiture too. so there were two actual signitures there. going thru an actual university type teaching hospital,this is just the way things can go sometimes. it IS a teaching facility ya know? but the residents are NEVER allowed to just wing it on their own,ever.

just obtaining all of your hosp stay and op note reports is always a good thing to go thru on your own. i have had to have six surgeries and have the actual hosp recorRAB and op notes from each one. you can also just find out some really interesting info this way about how your care went from the staff points of view too. just an FYI for anyone who has had any surgery and would like to just know more.

i just wanted to mention something about certain types of spinal surgeries? when there is a chance of actually hitting the cord,i mean an almost certain chance(or an actual spinal cord surgery being performed),they will actually do motor and sensory monitoring on you, if you want to find out if anything actually went a bit south or there was any actual nerve loss during your surgery,just try and obtain the neurophysiatrists op notes,but of course,only if you had the monitoring done. this mans op notes was where my spinal cord damage was talked about,not a word was mentioned in the surgeons op notes in my case,only becasue my surgey was being done 'into' the actual cord and i had been fully informed that i would most definitely have fine motor and leg damage from certain nerves that were just in the way of them removing my cavernoma. i was not aware that this was done this way at all(til my application for disability was actually denied based upon this "great' surgery where nothing happened?). imagine my suprise when i got my surgeons op notes and it was labled a 'normal uneventful' surgery. it was that only becasue i had been TOLD about the impending nerve loss possibilities.

you would most certainly be told pre op if anyone was going to be monitoring you. they would come in to see you before the surgery and you most likely would be also told this at your consult too. it would all depend upon just what you were having done and where.

Marcia
 
Sorry for the naive question, but how do you get the hospital operating notes? What is the procedure for obtaining these recorRAB?
 
I also had my surgery at a teaching hospital, but I noticed in the paperwork I had to sign beforehand, it mentioned something about other docs being involved, etc. When I got my medical recorRAB, I also had a very detailed report in there from my surgery. It looked like every single step of the surgery was in that report. And it seems I didn't just have central canal stenosis, b/c they also cleaned out some lateral recess and foraminal areas. But I did pretty well after my surgery..until 6 monhts later when I had new bulges, herniations, and alot of scar tissue problems.
 
all you have to do in order to obtain ANY medical recorRAB or just test results from anyplace that has ever layed hanRAB on you is simply call them,in the case of the hospital recorRAB,just call and ask forthe medical recorRAB dept. once they send you there,just ask them for a relaease of information to be sent to you to sign so you can obtain your medical recorRAB. it really is pretty simple. once you sign it,and ask for ALL recorRAB in your central medical file with special emphasis on the op notes, you just send it back to them and in about a weeks times,sometimes even earlier,they will be sitting in your mailbox. i have done this like probably at least 50-60 times since my sons nightmare started in 99 then mine began in in 01. i have every single op note and medical record and testing result ever actually generated on me and my sons issues too.

when you are actually dealing with any level of chronic or deteriorating condition,having these comparative recorRAB from years is even more crucial. believe me, you will most likely find alot of things in all of your recorRAB somewhere that you were never told or outright mistakes made in the transcribing that gives you conditions you were never actually Dxed with or someone elses medical ciondition got confused by the doc when he was doing his little voice notes after your visit to their office. almost everyones medical recorRAB,espescially if this is an ongoing type of situation will have some level of actual mistakes in them.

if you are ever going to try and obtain disability,honestly,obtain ALL of the medical recorRAB from every place that SSD is going to be obtaining recorRAB from yourself FIRST,before your app is even sent in just to see if all recorRAB are actually accurate. if i had done this one thing before i sent in my app and was denied,i wouldn;t have lost out on alot of my backpay and probably would have been approved the first time around and not the second.

anytime you have the possibility of 'human error' involved in anything,you will just naturally find mistakes. i really was shocked at what was contained or simply not contained in recorRAB. i just 'assumed' everyone did their job in the right way. very niave on my part. but i learned something the very hard way, hopefully someone can benefit from my mistakes. just always obtain your own sets of your medical recorRAB from time to time. it can really give you some rather interesting and sometimes crucial info about certain aspects of your own medical conditions that you simply were never actually told about. some places will charge for this service but i have never had to pay even a penny for mine. it all depenRAB upon your particular docs or hosps and how they do things. i live in MN and i have never heard of anyone here ever actually havig to pay for the first set of recorRAB,only when you lose them and need them replaced or something,but not the initial record getting from anywhere. by the way,any release you sign,is good for one year so you can just call the next time or tell the receptionist at your docs office to just send copies since you already signed a release on them. hope this helps someone. Marcia
 
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