Thomas West, MD
Robotic Prostate Removal
My story was a, took several years to evolve I had had some early rises in my PSA, the blood test they do to several for the Prostate Cancer. I had had the benefit of thinking about this through the years. And staying in tough with the various options that I had for treatment and I honestly knew that at some point I was going to have to make this decision and it was really a matter of when that biopsy was going to turn positive.
I chose the robotic-assisted prostatectomy over other procedures because I felt that I was able to get back to work sooner. I felt like there was some initial studies that suggests. That the urinary control and the sexual function afterwards might be better or would be better with the robotic assisted procedure it made sense to me that the better you can see around all the angles that a surgeon has to see when he’s working down in the corner, you know, in the recess in the abdomen. The better he could see the better my results would be. And when I was initially diagnosed, you know, my initial response was I went and paid even more attention to these cases and watched how good the visualization was and were there any little bobbles along the way. Dr. Miller in my experience when I was making this decision had done more of these procedures than anybody that I was aware with in Atlanta. And I knew that he was very proud of how well his patients did. So to the extent that all those things were very important to me I would highly recommend Dr. Miller for a robotic prostatectomy. There are many very capable physicians in our community. I’m just here to tell you as one that has observed him as not being the patient and one who has sat in his office that I cant imagine that there’s any body any better.
You can choose the place that you have confidence in and you can choose the surgeon whose skills a physician you trust and then you’ve got to let them do what you chose them to do. You cannot micromanage them you cannot out guess them. You chose them because you had confidence in them and let them do their work. And having had your procedure done then you need to play the head game. And that is something that I guess I’m a little bit proud of myself is that I have moved on and I don’t fret about this. As so I would encourage people after they have made their selection to not worry about this, this is a , if caught in a timely manner and the odds would support these the results, retrospective results would support this that the odds are overwhelming in favor of men who deal with the issue when it gets found and have it treated.