How to Select Your Doctor Tips for Choosing Your Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon: Get a personal recommendation from a friend, your family, or your family doctor. Select a board certified, fellowship trained, orthopaedic spine surgeon with additional training in spine surgery whose practice is primarily devoted to the adult degenerative spine. An orthopaedic spine surgeon doesn't take shortcuts. Their treatment recommendation will include a thorough examination and diagnostic tests necessary to plan treatment. There is no substitute for having all the information that these diagnostic tests can provide. This is one area where taking shortcuts (skipping diagnostic tests) can lead to improper diagnosis and treatment. Choose an orthopaedic spine surgeon who has invested in new techniques and staff training to keep your care "state of the art". Select an orthopaedic spine surgeon who will work with you on an individualized patient financial agreement program. A Patient's Story Surgical Experience with Dr. James Chappuis Geoff Edelman, Atlanta, GA I am a 52 year-old male. I have a Masters Degree in Business, and have spent my professional life in various service applications. For the past 13 years I have worked for a consulting organization that specialized in problem solving and decision-making. I have a wife and two children. Ten years ago I was an avid runner and tennis player. While loosening up to exercise one day I apparently made a wrong move. By evening I was in a hospital ICU with severe arm and neck pain. It was then I learned of the condition of my neck. Several of my disks had deteriorated, and now I had bone spurs growing into my spinal cord. Bone growth also was pinching nerves to my arms. Subsequently I visited a half-dozen orthopedists and neurosurgeons, and got different advice from every one. Their surgical options scared me beyond belief. However, over the next several months my pain diminished and finally went away entirely. While I knew my basic condition remained the same, I decided to postpone further action. Two years ago the pain in my arm returned, and this time it wasn't going to be denied. I again looked for the right doctor and treatment. Several times I received epidurals, but their relief was short-term and minimal. During one treatment I asked the attending doctor whom he would go to if he had my condition. He recommended Dr. Chappuis. It turned out Dr. Chappuis was in the hospital at the time, and I spoke with him briefly and got his card. My major complaint about the surgeons that I saw prior to Dr. Chappuis was that they locked into a diagnosis and favorite surgical approach after about 20 seconds of consideration. Further, for the most part they hedged on whether or not their "fix" would help. I found Dr. Chappuis to be much more analytic. He requested focused CAT scans before making a diagnosis. He also gave me the names and telephone numbers of prior patients for references, which no one else would provide. Based on good information, we began discussions on possible treatments. My objectives for a surgical intervention were as follows (in order of importance):    Have an improved quality of life after surgery,    Identify a long-term fix (remainder of my expected life),    Minimize the risk of permanent disability,    Avoid trading one set of symptoms for another set,    Minimize the need for additional surgery,    Minimize recovery requirements, and    Minimize financial and life quality disruptions to my family. On October 17, 2000 Dr. Chappuis and his brother removed the front of three of my disks and cleaned out the openings from my spinal cord to my arm nerves. They inserted a pyramesh metal cage to create the fusion, and attached a metal plate to my vertebrae to secure the device in place. They used my own bone material as well as some donor bone to complete the fusion rather than use bone from my hip. The first several weeks of recovery were no fun. My wife had to take care of me in detail. Avoiding head movement and trying to sleep in a neck brace were difficult at best. I was surprised at how weak I was, and I saw more 2:00 AM television than I had in a while. However, I never really had much neck pain from the surgery. Just a couple of numb fingertips. It was quite a test when, after two months, Dr. Chappuis took off my neck brace and told me to move my head up and down, and left and right. I was able to do so without any pain, and my head didn't fall off. Since then I've gone through some very good physical therapy. Now I have even more movement in my neck than before. I believe my objectives were met from the experience, and that I will be able to move on with my life as anticipated. The first decision anyone must face is whether or not to undergo a surgical intervention. My advice is try to identify the point where the pain is too much to bear, there is no progress from other sources, and permanent damage to nerves has begun. Then it's an issue of what kind of surgical intervention to undergo and who should do it. Establish your own objectives in terms of the outcomes you want, but have realistic expectations. Grade the surgeon and the surgical alternative next to your objectives, and examine the risks with each. You will not be like new but you can be better than you were. Don't be restricted by the surgeons available only through your health plan. Dr. Chappuis was not in my plan, but his willingness to develop an acceptable financial arrangement further solidified my choice. Don't be ruled by emotion. If you must, arrange for pain medicine so that you can approach your decision as rationally as possible. Finding the doctor whom you "like" the best or one that gives you the answer you want isn't the issue. If you choose the surgical option, determine to do what you must to regain your heath, and make it happen. Good luck