| Fibroids1: How safe and effective are treatment methods for fibroids? |
| Dr. Linda Bradley: Women ask about safety, effectiveness, availability, durability, costs and outcome of newer alternatives to hysterectomy including uterine fibroid embolization and endometrial ablation. Patients are reading, surfing the web, asking friends about alternative procedures - but they need a knowledgeable physician's perspective of what options exist for them. They are looking for an unbiased, evidence based answer, and hopefully one that is based on the expertise of their doctors. They want to know numbers: How many patients have you referred for embolization? What has been your own experience and that of your patients? How many hysteroscopic, laparoscopic or abdominal myomectomies have you done? Do you believe in alternatives or are you biased against newer options? Who are the referral sources in your community? If you cannot truthfully say that you have had any experience in other technologies or direct them to resources and have never recommend any other procedure besides hysterectomy - the patient will be very skeptical about your knowledge and honesty.
Sometimes my answers are: I don't know and we'll have to learn together. But generally, I try to approach everything with patients on their same level. For patients that don't like medicine I work on holistic approaches that can range from diet to medication to yoga to talk therapy. So it all depends on where they're coming from.
For patients that want to be very proactive and look at high-tech ways to solve problems, we look things that are conventional or new and up and coming. If there are clinic trials at our university I see if they are candidates for those.
A variety of approaches are available today.
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| Dr. Linda Bradley: Women ask about safety, effectiveness, availability, durability, costs and outcome of newer alternatives to hysterectomy including uterine fibroid embolization and endometrial ablation. Patients are reading, surfing the web, asking friends about alternative procedures - but they need a knowledgeable physician's perspective of what options exist for them. They are looking for an unbiased, evidence based answer, and hopefully one that is based on the expertise of their doctors. They want to know numbers: How many patients have you referred for embolization? What has been your own experience and that of your patients? How many hysteroscopic, laparoscopic or abdominal myomectomies have you done? Do you believe in alternatives or are you biased against newer options? Who are the referral sources in your community? If you cannot truthfully say that you have had any experience in other technologies or direct them to resources and have never recommend any other procedure besides hysterectomy - the patient will be very skeptical about your knowledge and honesty.
Sometimes my answers are: I don't know and we'll have to learn together. But generally, I try to approach everything with patients on their same level. For patients that don't like medicine I work on holistic approaches that can range from diet to medication to yoga to talk therapy. So it all depends on where they're coming from.
For patients that want to be very proactive and look at high-tech ways to solve problems, we look things that are conventional or new and up and coming. If there are clinic trials at our university I see if they are candidates for those.
A variety of approaches are available today.
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Dr. Linda Bradley
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Linda Bradley M.D. is an internationally recognized gynecologic surgeon known for her expertise in diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy, endometrial ablation, alternatives to hysterectomy, hysteroscopic sterilization and the evaluation of abnormal uterine bleeding. She is an obstetrician gynecologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio and is the director of Hysteroscopic Services.
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Dr. Linda Bradley
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Linda Bradley M.D. is an internationally recognized gynecologic surgeon known for her expertise in diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy, endometrial ablation, alternatives to hysterectomy, hysteroscopic sterilization and the evaluation of abnormal uterine bleeding. She is an obstetrician gynecologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio and is the director of Hysteroscopic Services.
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