How many patients had your doctor lost vs how many surgeries had they preformed?

Hi gang. I'm really heartbroken this morning and in a slight panic. I was recently informed that my doctor had preformed surgery on a family acquaintance and they had never woken from anesthesia and died from a blood clot. My family is obviously panicing. I called my doctor's office and found out that of the 700 surgeries he has preformed, he has lost three patients. One of a blood clot in the lung, one to a bleed, and one of a heartattack.

I need to know if this is an above average statistic, can you please provide me with your surgeons's stats?

Do the math: 3 deaths out of 700 surgeries is .004 percent, which is far below the national mortality average of .35 percent. Mortality rates for VSG are lower than for other types of bariatric surgery.

The person with a blood clot and the other with a heart attack, I guarantee you there were some underlying health issues. This is why it's SO very important to get all the tests required ahead of time and to be 100% HONEST with your surgeon on your habits/behaviors/meds.

My surgeon hasn't had any deaths due to VSG surgery - but I also don't know at this point how many he's done.

Death is a risk of ANY surgery. Get your heart and lungs as healthy as possible before surgery (no smoking, no smoking, no smoking!!) and follow the pre-op diet/rules religiously.

mine has done thousands and never lost any , a bled should be controled in the orerating room and a heartattack most surgeons want cartiologists ok before surgery , I had an ekg and a stress test ,

clots happen most surgeons give blood thinners before and after surgery to prevent them and get you walking right after surgery to prevent them

I would look for a diffrent surgeon

Mine had one loss. A lady *****fused to exercise. She went home and sat in a chair or laid in bed all day and developed a blood clot and died from it.

Mine has performed 9000 VSG surgeries, zero fatalities.

You also need to look at the if a surgeon takes high risk patients. Some will work with very high risk patients and their numbers might not look as good as surgeons that only take low to moderate risk patients.

If your surgeon gave you the 3 cases' cause of death, it's important to consider how much of that was in the doctor's control (or not).

Someone who is already unhealthy to start with may have a rough time with anesthesia, or have already done enough damage to their cardiac system that a heart attack would occur even without surgery, or for ANY surgery involving anesthesia. (This is why cardiac clearance is so important!)

While some bleeding issues can be caused by the surgery itself, it can also be caused by patient non-compliance. If you eat something you shouldn't while you're still healing (like having Doritos when you should only be drinking liquids), your failure to follow advice means the bleed or leak is pretty much your own darn fault.

Thanks and big hugs to everyone that replied. I feel a lot better about the entire situation. I had similar feelings about the heart attack and the blood clot patient; that those were just things that were likely to happen no matter who the surgeon had been for those people. As for the bleed. Thank you Julie. I didn't think about it like that. I just kinda jumped to the conclusion that he may have nicked the patient during the surgery.

I'm going to call him Monday and talk to him about the situation, and see if he would be permitted to state how the bleed patient had died (I know HIPAA laws can be a *****). His answer may make my choice for me.

Mine said he has done 1000+ and never lost a patient?

> 5000 laparoscopic surgeries, > 3500 bariatric surgeries. Never lost a patient. My biggest concern was the risk of blood clots. I received meds to prevent blood clots, and he sent me home with SCDs. If your doc doesn't offer you SCDs ask for them.