Your Medical History In Scars

01:34

April 04, 2011

Martha Bebinger

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[sidebar title="Patient Tips From Dr. Stephen Camer:" width="400" align="right"]

Dr. Camer, chairman of the Department of Surgery at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, suggests you conduct surgeon interviews before deciding with whom to work. To get you started:

What are your outcomes/How often are you successful?

How many of these procedures have you done?

What’s your complication rate?

What are my options?

How many times have you been sued for malpractice? How many of the suits resulted in findings against you?
(You can check the state's Board of Registry in Medicine to see if there have been any findings against your surgeon.)

[/sidebar]

BOSTON — Our scars illustrate part of both our personal medical history and the recent history of medical practice. Some of us have long, jagged scars. Some of us have tiny incisions. Some of us have lumpy burn scars or vaccine bumps or the visual remnants of stitches.

Share with us your scar story, along with a picture or video and the date of the event (physical or emotional), and we'll post them to the timeline above.

Here's how to share:

Send us an email to scars@wbur.org.

If you’d prefer to just share a story:

Post it in the comments section below...
...Or on our Facebook page.

Timeline produced by WBUR's Martha Bebinger

This program aired on April 4, 2011.