My wife is a highly specialized surgeon, she does one operation, and she does it around 600 times a year (Parathyroidectomy). An average endocrine surgeon might

My wife is a highly specialized surgeon, she does one operation, and she does it around 600 times a year (Parathyroidectomy). An average endocrine surgeon might do 20 of these a year. She went through training as an endocrine surgeon and she tells me that the difference between the operation that they do at her center and what an average endocrine surgeon will do is like night and day. It is just not possible for surgeons with normal volumes to be able to achieve that level of skill. What helped them recently was the release of the medicare volume data [1]. This data is probably right now the only way to get an idea of how many operations of a particular type your surgeon does (not for all operations unfortunately, not unless you know a lot about billing codes and practices!). [1] http://blog.parathyroid.com/parathyroid-surgery-medicare/ http://blog.parathyroid.com/parathyroid-surgery-medicare/