How to Choose a Physician to Treat Your Veins
1. Does your physician perform the ultrasound evaluation, or does he rely on another facility to do this for him?
The only way to tell exactly what type of vein problems you may have is with a good duplex ultrasound examination. This reveals much more information than any other test – including tests involving the injection of contrast and x-rays, or venography.
If your doctor is not competent enough to perform the ultrasound exam in his own facility, go find another doctor.
2. Make sure your physician is competent enough to do the ultrasound examination himself.
Unfortunately, there are physicians who claim to be “experts” in the treatment of venous disease, and yet rely on ultrasound technicians to diagnose the patient’s condition and even direct the patient’s treatment!
Consider a surgeon who claims to be an expert in the treatment of varicose veins, and boasts of attending of undergraduate college (four years), medical school (four years), doing a general surgery residency (five years), doing a vascular surgery fellowship (one year), and having 20 years of experience.
Now compare those qualifications to that of an ultrasound technologist, whose training typically consists of a two year associate degree program that may be obtained from a local community college. Even then, the bulk of the training will be in other areas of the body, such as obstetrics and abdominal conditions.
Clearly, there is something wrong if the highly trained surgeon who purports to be a venous disease expert needs the assistance of an ultrasound technologist whose education consists of two years of undergraduate college to identify venous disease.
3. Does your physician make use of state of the art diagnostic and treatment techniques?
If your physician cannot personally perform a comprehensive ultrasound exam on your legs – without the assistance of an ultrasound technician whose qualifications consist of two years of school at a community college -- than they are not expert in vein disease diagnosis.
If your physician cannot do ultrasound guided sclerotherapy – without the assistance of an ultrasound technician whose qualifications consist of two years of school at a community college – than he/she is not an expert in the treatment of vein disease.
If your physician is not able to perform thermal ablation (by either laser or radio frequency techniques) of the great saphenous and small saphenous veins, then they are not expert in the treatment of vein disease. If an outdated surgical procedures such as vein stripping is recommended, then your physician is not an expert in the treatment of vein disease.