Hal Scherz, MD – Urologist

Scott and I have know each other for about 12 years. Scott is one of my partners and we’ve had an opportunity to practice medicine together for  quite some time.Scott is in my estimation one of the most meticulous surgeons that I have had the opportunity to work with. I feel that I have good bedside manner and Scott puts me to shame. I think that I have never worked with anybody who is as detailed oriented as he is. And who has the mastery for the operations that he does. His planning is just unbelievable and that’s how he approaches every single operation that he does.

A few years ago when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer though and elevated PSA. I had biopsies done by one of my other partners in our group and they came back positive for prostate cancer.

As a Urologist that has all the information in the world and knows everything that I could about this disease process, about every possible treatment pros and cons, benefits and risks. There was never a doubt in my mind that the surgery would be a robotic prostatectomy. And there was no question in my mind that it would be any person other than Scott Miller.

The things that crossed my mind were the complications, the continence and the potency. Well, I know that in radical prostatectomy’s the continence rate is very, very high. Its much different than when I was training and this pediatric urologist was doing prostatectomy’s in training. It was a concern and if we were doing surgeries like that now I would be very concerned. But with a robotic prostatectomy where things are magnified so much and the surgery is just so delicate now that you can really get things put back together pretty much pretty close to how it was. It was really actually a very small concern of mine.

My biggest concern was potency and that’s, I think, every mans fear. And so I didn’t really have concerns that many patients have going to see somebody like Scott.  I had a completely different set of issues. Mine weren’t about cure or about continence it was mostly about potency. And I felt that this gave me the best opportunity to continue to have the same quality of life that I had before my surgery. Which I how I arrived at the decision and to me it’s a no brainer for any man who really wants to remain sexually active.

We had the surgery he spent extra time, he confided in me that he was sweating it a little bit operating on me but it went so smoothly. I didn’t skip a beat and in fact he had spelled out for me how long I would miss work. How long he wanted me to stay out and I was ready to go back to work within, Oh my gosh, a week.

I think that anybody who has prostate cancer, who is the right candidate for an operation would be fortunate to have Scott as his surgeon. There’s a lot of choices out there but as far as I’m concerned and I speak with my deeds not just with my words. I don’t think that there is any other decision, in my opinion, other than going to him and getting a radical prostatectomy done robotically.