Letter: Detail needed about heart surgeons
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Good job on "Kudos for LI heart surgeons, hospitals" [News, March 18]. However, I wanted to give you another perspective.
My father had valve replacement surgery and died shortly afterward from complications related to the surgery.
Reading that his doctor is rated with a "double asterisk" made me wonder what exactly it was for. The article said it was for a low death rate among patients but then went on to detail the number of bypass operations he did. There was no mention of the number of valve replacements. I think it would be good to give the public a breakdown of that as well, as he may be a lot less successful with those procedures.
It would be great if you could publish a follow-up article giving more detailed information on where patients and their families can find the most up-to-date information on doctors' success or lack thereof.
Scott Schmidt, Manhattan
