After having a double heart valve surgery and interviewing hundreds of patients, I can not stress how important it is to feel incredibly confident in your heart surgeon. There is nothing better than knowing you found the right surgeon with the right procedure at the right time.

That said, you or your caregiver should conduct extensive research to find the right man or woman for the job. (Sadly, this advice is not always followed as 35% of patients have valve surgery without a second opinion ^[1].)

Specific to this topic… Over the past few weeks, I have traded several emails with James – a patient from Massachusetts with severe mitral regurgitation ^[2]. In reading his words and seeing his actions, I know James is on the path to finding the best cardiothoracic surgeon for him.

How do I know this? Well… Take a look at the research James located about surgeons in his area. Even though the spreadsheet is tiny, I hope you can see some of the data that James is using to evaluate his potential surgeons. This table shows the surgeon name, 30-day mortality rate, case load and hospital.

After all of his research, James just informed me that he selected Dr. Alan Hilgenberg from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston ^[3]. Interestingly enough, Dr. Hilgenberg was identified as one of the “highly recommended heart surgeons” when I conducted a survey of former heart patients for my book ^[4].

Dr. Alan Hilgenberg

James is scheduled for surgery on August 29th to fix his diseased mitral valve. I want James to know that I’m thinking great and healthy thoughts for him!

Keep on tickin James!