On January 1, 2018, I walked into the New Year with a sole focus on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Venous Disease, and in the process found myself closing the door on a long and very successful career as a General Surgeon. It occurred to me, that while I had spent years growing my vascular practice in preparation for this specialization, many of my current and former general surgery patients might find this change as a surprise, and therefore be interested to hear an explanation for why I decided to focus my practice on Vein Care.
General Surgery
When I first joined a General and Vascular Surgery group right out of residency, I did everything from ruptured aortas to liver tumors, hernias to hemorrhoids, thyroidectomy to pancreatectomy, and carotid endarterectomy to lower extremity bypass. While the variety was exciting, being an expert at so many procedures was a practical impossibility.
As time went on, I began to tailor my practice to the areas that interested me most. As my specialization increased, I opted to turn away procedures with low volume. I believe you have to do procedures frequently to be an expert surgeon. Hemorrhoids went first (low interest) and others followed like parathyroidectomy (low volume).
Sub-Specialization
Over time our high-quality medical and surgical community here in Dallas saw the emergence of new sub-specialties (breast surgery) and growth of existing specialties (colon and rectal surgery). This similarly narrowed the scope for local general surgeons.
When acute care surgery emerged it was a welcome addition. The surgical hospitalist groups thrive on the emergency room where they are accustomed to seeing patients with abdominal pain, after a car wreck, or with infection in need of surgery. As my vein practice grew it was more and more difficult to take time away from a busy clinic to attend to these emergencies. Around that time my children were still young, and I consciously decided to be there for them. I wanted to share their experiences, concerts, soccer games, and the consistency of the evening meal. This is important to my wife and me, to be there for each other and for our children.
Phlebology
Phlebology (the treatment of vein problems) has held my interest for many reasons.
First, current technologies like Endovenous Ablation have made vein care highly effective. The treatment is performed in the comfort of our office setting, is less invasive, and has better outcomes than previous treatments. It has effectively made “Vein Stripping” obsolete.
Second, innovation continues to produce even better treatments. For example, VenaSeal is a new procedure which uses medical adhesive to painlessly and effectively seal off bad veins with amazing results. Even the solutions we use for sclerotherapy are better. They work better, have lower risk, and don’t hurt to inject. That’s a big improvement over the old saline injections.
With these tools the outcomes are excellent, complications are infrequent, and the results are high patient satisfaction. All of this is in close alignment with my personal goals in medicine.
If you or a loved one would like more information about vein issues such as varicose veins, spider veins or deep vein thrombosis, please call our office at (972) 378-5347 or use the online form at the right of this page. We look forward to hearing from you today.
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