By one means or another you have found this web-site. You may already be a patient and just want to find out more about your condition or what happens after the surgery; I might have been suggested to you by an ex-patient, your therapist or your insurance company and you wanted to check me out before you decided if I was right for you or maybe you found me through a Google search?
So far you have been quite impressed. The site seems good and you have found the answers you were looking for about your bad shoulder or elbow or hand.
But here is the big question. Am I actually any good? Your GP can send you to see whoever they think is good so, if they recommended me, then that seems positive. The same goes for your therapist because they have sent lots of people my way and they’ve done pretty well. And your friend was delighted with the result of the operation I did on their shoulder.
Subjectively then, it would appear that I am good. But is their any evidence for that? Am I getting good results for my patients and are my results better than others, worse than others or just the same?
To try and answer those questions I am now collecting independent evidence of the outcomes of the three commonest operations I do which, together, amount for over 90% of my workload.
If you do end up needing an operation I will ask you to log on to a site called www.myclinicaloutcomes.co.uk where you will be asked 12 questions about your shoulder before the operation and then again 3 and 6 months after it. I have been doing this for about 9 months now and should soon have enough cases collated to be able to publish my outcomes so you can see if I am really helping my patients. At the minute though there isn’t really anyone else you can compare my results with. But if you haven’t decided yet who you are going to trust to help you get better, why not ask them what their results are and make sure they have nothing to hide!
