Originally Posted by rosebud

Yes I do know a lot of people in the PD world locally...including Marg Meikle who was the subject of the article covered by the media in 4 parts. The last of which was buried with little fanfare in the middle of the paper somewhere.

I know Marg and she is incredible in many ways...but she is not untypical of dbs surgery locally. Over the ten years I have facilitated groups (4 of those with Murray Charters)...I have seen many more misses than hits. The one in ten comment was not off the cuff, It was a stat given to a friend of mine by his neuro with a word of caution... (Not all the Neuros in BC are good buddies) I have more stories but sufficient to say those who can afford it do go to Toronto. Those who are not so fortunate or financially blessed they take their chances here. I believe Dr. Honey gets funding for 25 DBS operations per year (socialized medical..I hope your paying attention). so he gets 3 genuinely successful, another 5-7 in the moderatly improved range, and another 4-5 not quite right, but getting by and the balance disappear from view. It looks like Marg will be one of the ones in the last group. This breaks my heart because she was bright and beautiful and I thought she had other options if she would work at them. I tried to talk her out of it. Not hard enough apparantly.

I know more,but I cannot speak as they are not my "insights" to share, simply ones others have entrusted me with. Yes, we have the loud proponents of DBS and the reason you do not hear from the rest is because they are out of sight and out of mind in many cases. I am not anybody special in the big picture, so you can make what you like of my comment. But from where I'm sitting it looks pretty much as stated.

Question: Who is the "they" that would not tolerate a 1in 10 ratio??? Just my opinion, not everyone agrees. If anyone wants to search the Marg Meikle story out look up the Vancouver Sun Newspaper.. the writer was Maurice Bridge the third article appeared Sat May 26 2007