All of the doctors at University Surgeons have excellent training and experience, have published extensively, and are noted to be leaders in their respective fields of general surgery. In addition, doctors associated with an academic institution (medical school) see many more patients with a particular surgical condition, and thus have done many more operations than doctors at community-based hospitals, and we are sent the most difficult cases by these doctors when they do not feel they can safely handle a difficult case. Our doctors, as well as our office staff, have many years of experience helping people who are frightened or upset, and take the time to give personal attention and the confidence and support you need at a difficult time.

You may visit the individual physician profiles on this website, and read the curriculum vitae of each doctor. We also suggest that you visit our section on “Medical Credentials – What Do They Mean?” on this website for a better understanding of the process of medical credentialing.

This answer, of course, depends on the condition for which you are being seen. University Surgeons realizes that our patients are frustrated by having to return to the office for multiple appointments because of an inability to complete all that is needed on a single visit. Therefore, we try very hard to assist you in completing your evaluation in a single day. This will usually require a little “homework” on your part. It is much better to do this all before you come in for the first time, rather than to have to schedule another visit and delay your treatment because the doctor did not have all that he needed to give you his opinion. This will usually mean a history of your treatment of this condition thus far, pertinent tests that have already been done, and an evaluation of other conditions that may affect your treatment. For further details, please refer to our section on this website on About Your Appointment.

You will have been asked to fill out some forms that describe your problem and tell about your medical condition in general. (These forms can be printed from this website and we encourage you to do this.) When the doctor first sees you, he will introduce himself and discuss your problem with you. He will then review your medical history, and will probably ask questions about your family and your personal habits. He will go through a review of problems to be sure there are no other symptoms you may not have thought to tell him about. He will perform an examination. Sometimes this will be brief if you have a simple problem. If your problem is more difficult or possibly you will need a major surgery, the examination may be very detailed and may even involve areas that do not appear to you to be a part of your problem. This is necessary because the doctor needs to evaluate your total health in making the best recommendation for you, as sometime other medical problems would indicate a change in the treatment recommended. After the doctor has completed this evaluation, he will discuss with you your treatment options. Many times this is done in his office instead of the examination room. You will be encouraged to ask questions until you have a good understanding of your condition and what is being planned. If you make a decision at that time, doctor’s secretary will then work with you to plan out the rest of your treatment and select dates for this. We will work with your insurance company to be sure everything is in order and payment will be made. You may be asked to help with this. The doctor will send a letter about you to the doctor who referred you here, so it is important that we have his name and address.

For certain appointments you may be asked to prepare in a certain way. For instance, you may be asked to do a bowel prep (See Bowel Prep – general information for patients on this website). Certain colon and rectal problems will need to be checked in the office by a rectal exam or even a proctoscopy. We may not know for sure that you will need this, but if you do you will not need to make a return visit if you are already prepared.

If you are not certain that you understand anything about your first appointment, please feel free to ask for the doctor’s secretary, who will be happy to answer all your questions.

We are located in the Professional Building at Rush University Medical Center. Rush can be easily seen from the Eisenhower Expressway (I-90) and Ashland Avenue, in the prestigious Illinois Medical District. You may link to MapQuest here to print directions from your home.

Once you arrive at Rush, you may park in the visitor’s garage. Watch for signs that will direct you there. Take an elevator to the 4th level of the garage, and follow the signs to the Professional Building. We are on the 8th floor, in suite 810, at the north end of the floor. Signs will tell you to take elevator I, as we are closest to this bank of elevators, but any elevator will take you to the 8th floor.

There is a fee for parking. Although the garage is attached to Rush’s buildings, it is a City of Chicago facility, and therefore, unfortunately, we are not able to validate parking for you.

If you prefer, you can drive directly to the front door of the Professional Building at 1725 West Harrison, where valet parking is available for an somewhat higher fee.

There are many reasons an insurance company would send out a new card to you. Some companies do this only when there is a change to another company. Others do this because they may have changed some detail, like who manages the prescription drug portion of your insurance, or a change in the name of details of the particular plan. Some companies will not process a claim against your insurance unless we send them a copy of your card along with the claim, and it must be the current card.

If we rely on an old card and your claim is rejected, it is sometimes quite a while before we can find out that this problem exists, and then to try to relate a card to a particular date of service is almost impossible. For this reason, we ask for, and date, a copy of your card at every visit. Your contract with your insurance company states that you must present your insurance card if you are not paying for the appointment, and you should always expect to do this.

Yes, many times there are no changes that will impact on the payment of your claim by your insurance company, but we have no way of knowing which times, and so we must make it a policy to get this information every time.

Any time you have surgery your body will undergo certain changes, just as if you had had a trauma. Sometimes you never notice any change at all, other times you do. A common change after surgery is an interruption in your normal bowel habits. This can be due to changes in diet, or changes in your activity level, for instance, that affect how your bowels move.

In most cases, this will quickly resolve on its own. You can take conservative measures, like increasing the amount of water you are drinking, prune juice, or mineral oil. Avoid harsh laxatives. If this does not resolve, please call the doctor for advice.

It takes a while for your body to form new tissue that holds your incision together. For this reason, it is important that you avoid activities that will strain the area of the incision. Your tissue heals by forming a bridge when two sections of tissue are touching each other. Usually your body will heal uneventfully by forming scar tissue, and the scar tissue that forms is even stronger than the surrounding tissues. Until this happens, your incision is held together by sutures (stitches), pressure bandages, and/or Steri-Strips.

Every person has an individual rate of healing. You have been instructed to avoid certain activities that may strain your incision, but this may be unavoidable – a forceful sneeze, for example, may happen spontaneously.

Openings in an incision are rarely a problem, but some will need additional attention. A small area of opening may not need anything done to heal correctly, but larger areas may need to be seen or even re-sutured. You should always call your doctor if you notice any opening, and be prepared to describe the size of the area that has opened accurately.

Your incision should be kept clean and dry. If the dressing looks dirty or becomes wet, you should change it. You can take a shower and change the dressing afterwards. You should avoid soaking or tub baths that could cause infection in rare instances. You can change the gauze. You should wash your hands before changing your dressing.

If you remove the dressing at any time, you should take the opportunity to look at the wound. You should look for signs of infection (reddened areas or areas that are hot to the touch), any discharge from the wound, or any significant opening of the incision. If this is seen, you should call the doctor. Problems are rare, but occasionally happen.

You should not, however, remove the Steri-Strips from the wound. These are the thin strips that run across the incision. These will be removed by the doctor when he sees you for your postoperative visit, or he will instruct you about this further at that time.

A “General Surgeon” is in fact a specialist who has had five to seven years of advanced training in surgery of the organs of the abdominal cavity (e.g., liver, pancreas, spleen, et. Cetera), the abdominal wall, endocrine system, breasts and skin.

Years ago, all surgeons were general surgeons, but with the development of new skills, other surgical fields spun off of general surgery. Some of these fields are neurological surgery, heart surgery, bone surgery, kidney surgery, and plastic surgery. All of these fields require the surgeons to have 1 to 3 years of general surgery training before they are allowed to proceed into the particular specialty.

Sometimes our patients wonder, “Does going to a general surgeon always mean I will need to have surgery?” The answer is, “No.”

As specialists in general surgery, we are trained to diagnose and recommend the most appropriate therapy. Sometimes this is a surgical recommendation, and sometimes it is a recommendation for nonsurgical treatment. Sometimes you need to see a surgeon routinely to monitor a condition or to take preventive measures that can help you avoid the need for surgery in the future.

We now feel that, yes, blood transfusions are safe. In the past six to seven years diagnostic tests have become very reliable in detecting the presence of hepatitis C and HIV in the donor’s blood, and this risk is almost nonexistent.

To alleviate risk entirely, for non-emergency surgeries, a patient can always arrange to donate their own blood which will then be available at the time of surgery. This has an added benefit, since blood not taken from a blood bank will now be available to some other person.

In essence, the esophagus is merely a tube that transports food from the mouth to the stomach. The walls of the esophagus are lined with muscles that contract rhythmically and help the food travel to the stomach. Sometimes the muscles do not work as well as they should, and when this happens you may get a feeling of a spasm and it may feel like the food is not going down, which then rapidly passes. This is called dysmotility. In most cases, unless it severely affects your ability to eat, no treatment is given for this condition.

The esophagus also controls the entry of food into the stomach. At the end of the esophagus is a valve called the gastroesophageal valve. This valve opens to allow food to enter the stomach, and then closes to prevent food from traveling back up the esophagus, in other words, keeps food in the stomach. This valve is also a muscle, and sometimes it does not work as well as it should. In this case, it does not close completely at all times, and when this happens food can go back into the esophagus, especially when you lay down. Food from the stomach contains stomach acids, and therefore this can cause discomfort sometimes called “heartburn” and over a long period of time can inflame the lining of the esophagus (esophagitis) or begin to destroy this lining (erosion). This condition is called gastroesophageal reflux, also know as GERD. This is not a condition that will usually go away by itself, although changes in diet, lifestyle, and weight loss sometimes help. Medicines are available that work by either neutralizing the effects of the stomach acids or relaxing the valve so it works better. These are quite effective, but ultimately some patients will need surgery to treat this condition.

Yes, you can.

If the pancreas is removed, you will need to replace what the pancreas does by medication. This means you will need to take insulin and pancreatic enzymes. If this is done according to instructions, along with appropriate monitoring of the body’s use of these replacements, there is no other effect on lifestyle or life expectancy. You can expect to live with minimal inconvenience as long as anyone else.

Does my body reject mesh?

No, it does not. The materials that are presently being used to manufacture the mesh are not treated by the body as foreign material, and are not rejected.

You will be given what is called “sedation”. General anesthetic is not necessary for a mesh plug hernia surgery. You will be given a medication that will make you go into a “sleeplike” state. Some patients snore in this state. You will breathe on your own throughout the procedure. While under sedation, you can be awoken and can even speak. You will not feel pain, and you will have very little, if any, memory of what happened during the procedure.

There is very little effect on the body when the gallbladder is removed. The gallbladder’s only function is to store bile, an enzyme that is used in food digestion, and to release it when the body calls for it. Your body will still make bile, and you will still digest food effectively. There will be no changes in your lifestyle and you will not need to eat a different diet or take medication because you no longer have a gallbladder.

Immediately after surgery a few patients have some diarrhea. This always resolves within one to two weeks.

Yes, it is. Mammograms are still considered to be the “gold standard” for early detection of breast cancer. The American Cancer Society recommendation is that every woman over the age of 40 should have an annual mammogram. Mammograms have proven effectiveness over many years of finding early stage cancers. Many new tests have recently been developed for the early detection of breast abnormalities, such as ultrasound, ductal lavage, and ductoscopy, all of which are done at University Surgeons. These examinations are excellent, but they are designed to look at a specific problem or make a specific determination. A mammogram is a general exam that looks at the entire breast for the presence of abnormalities, a very different purpose. As a routine screening for breast disease, this is still the best test. Routine mammograms allow the physician to watch developments in the breast over a period of time. There is also the added advantage of being readily available and inexpensive.

Patients that see us routinely for monitoring of breast conditions and prevention of breast disease ask our doctors this. It is a difficult question to answer in a general way, because the answer is dependent on many factors. The answer must be tailored to each patient’s particular situation.

When you discuss this with your doctor, you should be prepared to talk about the following things:

How long you have been on hormone replacement therapy.
The doctor will review your health history to see if there are any
associated risk factors that need to be considered.
You should review the reasons you have for being on hormone
replacement therapy and how effective has this been for you.

An anal abscess usually develops from an infection in the glands that drain into the anal canal. After the infection is treated, the opening into the anal canal usually closes as part of the healing process. If it does not close during healing of the initial abscess, infection can then recur through the same opening. It will usually develop at the same location as the first abscess and will often drain on its own at the site where it previously drained. This is called an anal fistula, which is an abnormal communication between the lining of the anal canal and the skin near the anus. If this continues to recur it may be necessary to have surgery to find this abnormal communication and eliminate it.

A hiatal hernia is a defect in the diaphragm (the muscle that divides the chest from the abdomen). The esophagus runs through the diaphragm in the chest, and enters the stomach, which is in the abdomen. When a hiatal hernia develops this allows the stomach to enter the chest (thoracic cavity) at this opening in the diaphragm, and push against the lungs. When this happens, food does not stay in the stomach, but instead runs back into the esophagus.

Typical symptoms of hiatal hernia include heartburn, vomiting, a sense of fullness after eating, difficulty eating, and worsening asthma.

Hiatal hernia is very common. Many people have a hiatal hernia and do not have enough symptoms to pay attention to it, and it may go undiagnosed. If you have symptoms you should see your doctor about it. In many cases this can be treated with medications or changes in diet, and only a small percentage of patients will require surgery. it is important, however, that you know if you have a hiatal hernia and your doctor should monitor this for development of a more serious condition.

If you have had surgery for cancer, you may be having follow-up treatment by way of radiation therapy or chemotherapy, or you may be seeing a doctor here at Rush’s Cancer Center. Many hospitals have their own support services. Here at Rush there is a Department of Psychosocial Oncology. You can reach them at 312-563-2137. They offer counseling for patients and family members, as well as teaching coping skills in personal meetings and courses.There are some organizations that offer patient and family support without cost to cancer patients. One of these is the Cancer Wellness Center. We are printing their doctrine as a service to you.

THE CANCER WELLNESS DOCTRINE

My health is my responsibility (but I did not cause my disease).
I will always have hope (what I hope for may change over time).
My doctor and I are partners (we both have things to learn).
Death is not failure (personal dignity and quality of life are my measures of success).
Cancer provides me with an opportunity (I don’t have to feel grateful for it).
I am willing to change the way I deal with stress (the past is important only if I make it so).
Cancer is a family illness (we all need attention and support).

I have the power to make a difference in my care (I need to look inside for the proper direction).