Frequently Asked Questions

Will you send information to my doctors?

 

Yup, we sure do!

Within 2-4 days after the operation we will send a package to all of your doctors telling them about your operation. We will include a photo of the parathyroid tumor(s) we removed and on it a measure of how much hormone each parathyroid gland is making, PTH hormone levels taken from you about 30 hour after the operation (the white sticker on their photo), and a report on your other parathyroid glands and your thyroid gland (contained within the dictated operative report they will get). They will get a letter from us, and they will get a copy of the formal operative report and pathology report. They should already have this information when you see them at 4-8 weeks post-op.

Our expectation is that over 99% of our patients are cured for life.

Nobody cures 100% of patients, but we are very close, so we don’t expect to see you again. Of course we know who is cured before they leave the hospital in almost all cases because we 1) see and assess all four parathyroid glands in almost all patients (this is by far the number 1 way to know people are cured), 2) have removed one or more tumors from your neck (and you probably have a picture of them), 3) measured the amount of hormone being produced by each gland, removing the gland(s) that were over-producing PTH hormone, and 4) measured the PTH in your blood (out of your arm) before you left the hospital to see that it decreased appropriately. We aren’t guessing or hoping our patients are cured.

Did you know that no other doctors in the world take all of these steps to make sure you are cured? Did you know that 99% of surgeons “cheat” by removing only the parathyroid gland that shows on the scan and then they quit? Did you know that as many as 30% of patients who have this simplistic approach will need another operation within a few years?

Show the “Instructions for Your Doctor” page to your doctor

This app has a page that we want you to show to your doctor. It has the post op instructions about calcium, PTH, osteoporosis drugs, etc. It also has a few teaching points that most doctors need to see. Click Here to see the “Instructions for Your Doctor Afterwards” page.