surgeon advice
 

Is anyone familiar with Dr. John Regan? He does the VATS surgery for thorasic stenosis. He has been recommended to me. I appreciate any information that you might have about your experience with him,

Kricket, i am afraid i have nothing good to say about John Regan. Others would argue with me. But i will try not to make my story too long. I had the VATS surgery performed by him in 2009. I had terrible pain from T7-8 and T11-12. I also had been fused from the back in my thoracic spine. Apparently in surgery they had problems with my lung and kept inflating and deflating it. He was able to complete the T 7-8, but not the lower level. He then turned me over , made it a long surgery and removed all the thoracic hardwear. we had never discussed this. I went to recovery and went into full respiratory arrest. He was no where to be seen. Ever again., He never came to see me and i was in the hospital for 2 weeks. His assistant surgeon came for a few days and said i was ready to go home. I had only been out of intensive care for like 2 or 3 days, i was very anemic and weak and my oxygen would desaturate as soon as i took a step. It was hard for me to get to the bathroom and back as i was so short of breath. I did call him from the hospital on day 5 , was in tears, had no idea what had happened and begged him to come. He never came. I did get adopted by a wonderful doctor from internal medicine. he would not allow me to go home in that bad a shape, but i never saw anyone from Regan's office again as they said i could go home and they were done with me. the hospital insisted he had to come discharge me and i was stuck an extra day because no one showed up that day either. so finally the pulmonologist felt bad and discharged me . I am left with only 65% lung capacity because he apparently damaged the phrenic never which controls the diaphram muscle. He was just not a nice person at all either. I understand accidents can happen, but own up to them.
sorry any more info you can pm me .
judy Sewell

Kricket, I moved your post to the main forum where it will get more traffic. As we discussed, thoracic spine surgery experience is quite limited. There are a few other t-spine patients who have been here... Jason H and Aaron. (not sure about their user names) Contact me and I'll put you in touch with them.

Mark