It is important to understand that we as doctors like everyone else believe in the therapeutic options we can deliver and are enthusiastic to demonstrate the benefits they may confer. That enthusiasm may, however, crowd out other treatment options, some which may even be better, perhaps better in terms of more complete relief or better long term results.

If you wish to consult with us for a 2nd opinion for whatever reason – surgery vs percutaneous therapy, international patient, , awaiting on public waitlist but have private medical insurance, whether surgery is appropriate or possible – we will endeavor to provide you with a balanced appraisal of your condition and in our opinion your best treatment option.

To enable us to provide a quality opinion it will be necessary for us to have access to all your previous medical correspondence especially if from a fellow specialist. In addition, we will need to be able to access any imaging that is relevant – a coronary angiogram, echo studies, X-rays, CT and or CT/PET. Whilst reports of these studies are helpful, the actual studies are better as a report is essentially another form of opinion.

Usually to provide an opinion we would like to meet with you and take your history and examine you but not always. This should also provide you to ask any questions you see fit, as to potential benefits of surgery, what operation is appropriate, and importantly what are the relevant risks and benefits of that operation. It should be acknowledged that one of the most important jobs we have as surgeons is to judge who should not have an operation because of lack of a clear benefit or excessive risk.

We can provide estimates of treatments but these can only be approximate if the information available is limited.