Policy issues identified after my experience with prostate surgery

I’ll pursue these after I’m better, but these are initial thoughts:

1. While it would increase red tape, there should be ongoing regular monitoring of the progress of continence and erectile function for each such surgery. “The NHS – who make surgeons report their success rates these days – regard success after RP as using 1 pad or less per day by 12 months post-op.” – Source]

2. Patients should get a copy of the robotic prostate surgery video.

Doctors do get a copy of their surgery video record:

“I asked my doctor if he understands why some people have more severe incontinence problems and he said there is some correlation with age and fitness but that he’s reviewed the videos and records from his past surgeries and tried to correlate them with the outcomes but he still doesn’t understand the variations in outcome.” [Source].

This does imply, though, that the video might not do any good to an untrained patient. If even experts can’t use videos to predict continence outcomes then giving the videos to the patients may not help.

A full-fledged cost-benefit test should be applied in each case before any change is made to existing policy.