Your Choice, Danny

"Only a few surgeons do a high volume of repairs. An average surgeon in North America does ten mitral valve procedures in a year. I do 10 to 15 times this number." So said Dr. Thierry Mesana, chief of cardiac surgery at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, one of the recognized experts in mitral valve repair. Aren't Canadians fortunate that they have the capable expertise of someone like Dr. Mesana to rely upon in this type of surgery?

Well, Newfoundland's perennially irate premier thought otherwise. "I was warned by my staff that this could be an issue. But this is my heart. It's my health and it's my choice", he said, referring to his controversial (outside Newfoundland; on the Rock Danny Williams still rocks, he can do no wrong) decision to exit Canada for surgery when he was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve.

So what's all the controversy about? This is a robustly-fulminating, Island paranoiac Newfie-first zillionaire after all, who can spend his money wherever he likes. It's his money, his health, his mitral valve-regurgitating heart, isn't it? Um, yes, it most certainly is, and the hypocrisy that accompanies his support of universal health care paid for by tax dollars is just a Canadian fact of life.

So did he do well for himself in making that choice, which he claims his Newfoundland-based heart specialists urged him to take? (And isn't it amazing that Danny couldn't predict the firestorm of opinions ranging from support to outrage over his decision; that his aids would have to point out to him delicately his 'choice' might prove to be an issue?)

Well, Danny's choice (don't mind if we call him Danny, do we?) was to undergo less invasive, less involved surgery, a procedure that involved armpit incisions close by the breast area, rather than choose to go the road of a more traditional surgery involving opening the sternum. He made that choice, he said, to enable himself to get back to the rigours of defending Newfoundland from Canada more expeditiously.

So what does one of Canada's reigning experts on the procedure have to say about Danny's choice? Well, he mentioned a survey published by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons just this past January which cautioned that the procedure "is not recommended for complex mitral valve repair and that the rate of complications (strokes in particular) is higher" with that procedure.
Well, what do they know, anyway?

And what about Dr. Mesana? "It is a much more complex and surgically challenging operation to repair a valve instead of replacing it." He would know, his record boasts a 98% success rate for the thousand or so mitral valve surgeries he has completed. "...there are a few advantages in terms of length of hospital stay, transfusion or post-operative arrythmias.

"The only real benefit is cosmetic. Many world-renowned experts do not advocate it. It is done in Canada, but again, with caution. I propose it only for cosmetic reasons in a young woman who dislikes the idea of having a scar." Eeuu! a scar.

No fear, when Danny Williams kicks the dust it'll be a result of apoplexy blowing his stack, not his breast.