i firmly believe my role here is to provide you with the most education about VTOS so you can make the best decision about the right treatment for you.
Somethings that TOS patients need to know is that some of the highest volumed surgeons that treat tos are not located in major medical centers. something else about TOS is that not all surgeons agree on the same treatment. The field of tos treatment is flawed with the lack of clinical standards as there has never been a large randomized trials done for any of the types of tos surgery or treatment. for example think about breast cancer, it is usually a board certified surgical oncologist that performs the surgery and post op therapy is very well established any deviation from it leads to poor outcomes and malpractice. In TOS surgery, no such thing, I have seen neurosurgeon, vascular surgeon, thoracic surgeon, plastic surgeon all perform this type of surgery. as you can tell there is no standard and i am sure the outcome varies greatly. Now, in this day and age it is almost unacceptable. As tos surgeons we are currently trying to establish such standard in the field. My professional opinion is that this type of procedure is best performed by a vascular surgeon ( not because I am one). Because we are the group that is trying to establish a standard of care for tos patients. I think you are going to MGH. I know the surgeons there. the vascular surgeons there are actually the specialist in the treatment of effort thrombosis. I think dean is a thoracic surgeon. The vascular surgeons there perform around 20 cases of VTOS surgery a year (I know them very well). I cant imagine dean does more than that a year. He may do a lot of neurogenic tos surgery. but it is very important for you to know that effort thrombosis (although considered to be a type of tos ) is totally different from NTOS. a different compression in a different space that causes effort thrombosis. So if any thing I think you should consider visiting their vascular surgeons while there in MGH. Please ask me more questions as you wish. I really hate to see you mistreated.