My mother recently had a laminectomy to try to correct a back injury from a fall, causing several disk herniations and a pinched nerve (not sure exactly which disks). She also had a compression fracture which apparently has healed. She also has scoliosis, which she has had all her life. She is 78 years old and is in an extraordinary amount of pain. Dr. Marcotte at Penn did the laminectomy, removing and filing off some bone. This was the more conservative approach and it didn't work. She's still in excrutiating pain and basically has no life. She met with the doctor again yesterday (it's been two months since surgery now) and there is another surgery he can do with a rod to straighten the back in order to address the issue; I think this a fusion procedure. Anyway, long story short, it's complicated because of the scoliosis and there is a danger of collapse, which would obviously make her much worse than she is now. We need to seek other opinions before we can decide whether to go forward with this, although she definitely needs to do something because the pain is so bad and cannot be relieved with medication, epidurals or other nonsurgical methods.

My question is whether anyone can recommend any other neurosurgeons in the Philadelphia area that they have had positive experiences with. I have found a few names but haven't been too impressed by the reviews I'm reading online. I don't want to base our decision on that alone so I'm hoping to get guidance from other folks going through this. Thank you so much for any help.