I'm glad to have been there to provide Liza Jane with emotional support, because she was verbally battered. I found the doctor cold to the extreme and uncaring and unfeeling in his approach and demeanor. He controlled the brief discussion from beginning to end and was unforthcoming to the extreme. He refused to discuss pluses, minuses, pros, or cons. The conversation consisted of him opening the meeting with "When do you want to have the surgery". Beyond that, he was only willing to discuss additional presurgical testing to be done. We both had questions prepared but he refused to answer any but the most trivial of them (yes, she can take a vacation before the surgery). I really had nothing to write down except the names of the tests he mentioned.

Poor Jane having to deal with him and with the prospect of another surgery! To me, that surgeon's technical skills are meaningless given his disrespect and arrogance (as opposed to confidence). The thought of being unconscious in a room with my life and welfare in his hands would be unthinkable, but maybe Jane feels otherwise.

We all need a "wingperson" for critical appointments and hospital stays. I'll post an article about the topic, and then add a link to it to this posting.
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Well, I can't find the article. I'll continue looking for the article, but I don't think our newspaper archived it. Too bad. It was by a retired pediatrician. The problem she wrote about is that doctors often don't think through what they are doing, records are lost or not read, and hospital care is often shoddy. She advocated:

1) Asking for and keeping copies of ALL your medical records. They must be provided by law. Just by your asking, doctors will be more careful and thoughtful with you.

2) Having an advocate in the room with you for all important doctor appointments. Again, that makes it more likely that the doctor will actually think through your situation instead of taking the lazy, easy, automatic path.

3) Having a person in your hospital room with you at all times. With the shortage in nursing staff, post-surgical and medical mistakes are far more common than you'd like to believe, and problems can become critical or fatal before the overworked nurses notice a problem.