Many surgeons choose to treat pilonidal patients with disfiguring, wide-excisional operations hoping to completely remove the elusive cyst. The problem is that many of these radical operations for pilonidal disease: 1) often don’t work and can lead to a recurrence as they fail to shallow the cleft, eliminate dead space under the skin surface, andContinue reading “I am on a mission to educate patients and the surgical community”

It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks!  And it’s a challenge to get surgeons to change the way they treat a particular condition after residency training.  Surgeons are trained by their mentors to do things in a certain way.  Most are wedded to that way.  Change is difficult and many surgeons are cautious in adopting new surgicalContinue reading “How do we Teach Proper Pilonidal Surgery Technique? “

Few surgeons truly have a desire or interest in taking care of pilonidal patients and many of their operations make the problem worse.   Not everyone should be performing the cleft lift.  It is technically demanding, requires good three-dimensional planning, and adequate patience to meticulously perform the operation. So, if the surgeon you’re consulting withContinue reading “How do you know if a surgeon is a pilonidal expert?”

During my training as a general and colon and rectal surgeon, I was complicit in many poorly planned and executed operations for pilonidal disease.  Patients would come to the operating room with a symptomatic but small appearing problem, and they would leave with a huge hole in their backside.  In the resident clinic I would see theseContinue reading “Surgeons, please partner with me in changing the way we treat pilonidal disease.”