I had surgery with Dr. Avery in SF in 2005. I'm worse for it.

He was very thorough in his discussions, good bedside manner, good follow up. However, when I started getting markedly worse about 8 months after surgery I wasn't thrilled with his response.

He said he was now having better outcomes. I asked why and he said, "I'm picking my surgical candidates more carefully." i said, "Does that mean I shouldn't have had surgery in the first place?" No answer...

He claims success rates of 85%, which a lot of the doctors do. I haven't seen any longitudinal studies bear out those numbers. Vascular TOS patients typically do better than Neurogenic, however.

There is also a doctor at UCSF who does surgery. I think they only remove the scalenes.

Good luck,
Kelly