Hey Everyone, 

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on this blog and I’m moving towards documenting my transition and more specifically my lower surgeon on Instagram for a variety of reasons. 

If you would like to follow or shoot me a message on there, please do. My instagram is willssurgeryjourney. 

Journey to Lower Surgery: Choosing a Surgeon

Choosing a surgeon was a new experience for me because for my top surgery and hysto, I only had one choice. I had three choices for phalloplasty, so I thought I would talk a little bit about how I made my decision.

The three options were: The Team at GRS Montreal led by Dr Belanger, Dr. Schecter and his team, and Dr. Crane and his team.

Before I go any further, I want to say that I respect everyone’s decision to go or not to go with any surgeon but these were the factors that led my personal decision.

The Montreal Team:

I always assumed I would have my surgery in Montreal because it’s the only place in Canada currently performing phalloplasty and when funding first became available in B.C. it was only for that clinic.

For a few reasons, I was a bit hesitant. First, they don’t do UL in stage one. It’s really important to me that I get that in the first stage, as I think would have a really hard time, mentally, dealing with that. I have heard of a few cases lately where they have but that’s done when the patient is under and not something decided on beforehand.

Another, smaller thing, is that you have to have an in person consultation and I live on the other side of the country, getting there wasn’t really a viable option. While they are in Canada, which seems like a bit of an advantage, they are actually quite far away from where I live.

Another problem is that they won’t report on complication rates. I know that almost all complication rates that have been reported on are self-reported and inherently flawed to a degree, however, not reporting at all made me uneasy.

As well, I’ve been informed that they require electrolysis not only before stage one but between stage one and two, below the belt. If this could be avoided, I would like it to be. Overall, I wasn’t super comfortable with the idea of having surgery with them.

I was given two options for surgery in the states; Dr. Schecter and Dr. Crane.

Dr. Schecter

A big pro with Dr. Schecter is that he does do UL in the first stage. He does have a pretty short wait list which I know is a pro for a lot of people but personally, not for me, as I needed time to do hair removal and also get other parts of my life sorted. He also requires an in person consult which would be difficult for me. From reading reviews I wasn’t completely comfortable with his approach to surgery at all times. It appears that he might be coming from more an old school approach, including requiring patients going off testosterone for surgery. It also doesn’t seem like this is really his niche or that he performs it as often as other surgeons.

Dr. Crane

Dr. Crane appealed to me for a couple of reasons. One, is that he is a trained urologist and plastic surgeon, has a lot of training, and has done a high volume of these surgeries. He does the UL and the glansplasty in the first stage which is also a huge benefit for me. He also doesn’t require an in person consult which was helpful for my particular situation. I’ve also seen the most results from him and I’m impressed.

His wait list is pretty long but that’s also okay for me because like I said, I need some time for hair removal and other stuff.

Of course, he is a bit of a controversial topic in the community right now and I don’t dismiss that but based on my research and also consulting with him, I am feeling comfortable with my decision to go forward with surgery. Given my three options, he is the surgeon I feel best about going forward with.