Monday, January 26, 2009

Dr. Monteith Must Search for His Own Tubal Reversal Instructor

By Sandra Wilson

Tubal reversal surgery as an alternative for women seeking to untie their tubes may be a dying science. That is unless we get more doctors like Dr. Monteith. He could not get the training he needed to do tubal reversal surgeries, so he sought out his own mentor.

But, before we go into that further, let's find out if I am hyping the concern about the loss of tubal reversal for women seeking to reverse tubal ligation. To do this, we will use the information provided by Dr. Monteith from his own experiences.

Using the posts Dr. Monteith makes on the Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center blog as our source of information, we learn that his choice for further training within the medical community lay in a reproductive endocrinology fellowship program of three years. This is beyond his training and practice as an ob/gyn. However, friends within the program showed him that this just wouldn't get him the training he needed. While one of them did only three tubal reversal surgeries his whole time in the program, the other did none. The fellowship didn't look like the place to get the training and experience he needed to pursue his dream.

If not for one incident during his residency, Dr. Monteith would not have even known tubal reversal surgery would be good for women. While he listened in on another doctor counseling a patient who had decided she wanted another child after her tubes were tied, he was shocked to hear that doctor recommend tubal reversal to correct the previous procedure.

Recovering from his surprise, Dr. Monteith asked questions of the doctor after the patient's counseling to learn more. He had been informed somewhere that the success rate of tubal reversal was less than 50% and when asking the doctor about that, he got a very indignant reply that it was 80% in the best hands. Look into tubal reversal success rates to learn more for yourself but know that it can be even higher than 80% depending upon the factors.

With this information from that one appointment stored in his mind and a later meeting with a staff member from CHTRC, once his desire to be a tubal reversal doctor grew, Dr. Monteith sent an email to Dr. Berger to request training. Fortunately for women everywhere, Dr. Berger knew he had finally found the apprentice he was to teach.

What we need is more doctors to realize what a great service tubal reversal surgery is for women who have changed their minds regarding tubal ligation. But it also helps women suffering infertility due to tubal blockage. What will we do if more people don't do as Dr. Monteith did to find his own mentor? Will tubal reversal surgery be there for the next generation?

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