Talk:Shouldice Hernia Centre

Recurrence rate
Before I went in the Shouldice I did a literature search for information about success of different types of hernia surgery. In the end I agreed with one article which said there is no real evidence of the efficacy of different types of surgery. For example, there is little or no evidence about the success of different types of surgery with different types of hernia, or with repairs of varying difficulty. The Shouldice also does not provide information about the percentage of applicants it refuses to treat. For example, overweight patients are required to lose weight – how many of them end up losing the weight and getting treatment?

The prevailing opinion seems to be that the Shouldice does better than other places, but that the difference is not as marked as it or this article claims. A failure rate of 10% to 15% is much higher than anything I found in any of the studies I looked at.

I do believe the Shouldice should serve as a model for Ontario health care. It would be easy enough to set up publicly funded versions of the Shouldice, not only for hernias but for high-volume surgeries like hip replacement. I also was impressed when I was there by the way the hospital is run. Everything was explained to patients in detail at the outset, and the day of surgery was very efficiently organized. And I met a fellow who'd been referred there because no one else in Canada would treat his unusual hernia, so that argues for the superiority of the Shouldice.

However, I think the statement about relative success rates should be moderated a bit, and it should note that the recurrence rate for the Shouldice is estimated by the hospital itself and not, as far as I know, by independent researchers. If I'm wrong about that, let me know. John FitzGerald 00:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a bit. Maybe more later. John FitzGerald 19:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldice itself
Shouldice is a surgical operation for hernia repair. . Shouldn't it have its own page? It is quite well known. This hernia centre was named after the operation (or at least the person who invented it). Myrrideon (talk) 01:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Ownership
It appears that this article is out of date, as the hospital was sold a few months ago (~ September 2012). I don't really have the effort to do the research to update this article. This article needs a LOT of work. It's got some very bold claims with no citation and that's the least of the problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.224.237.249 (talk) 22:25, 27 December 2012 (UTC)