Should I Go to New York City for Pilonidal Surgery?
The answer is a resounding yes. Traveling to a superspecialist for your pilonidal surgery is highly beneficial and likely critical to your outcome. PTCNJ is the only dedicated pilonidal center in the New York City metropolitan area and one of only 3 such centers on the East Coast. As such, it offers the services of a superspecialist.
It is a generally accepted rule that, for medical procedures, repetition breeds quality. In American surgery, we see consistently high benchmarks met in cardiothoracic, orthopedic, and bariatric surgical programs, performances in turn driven by mandatory high volumes of specific procedures per program.
In contrast, as per American data, the vast majority of surgeons performing pilonidal procedures list pilonidal disease as only a small component of their practices. To this point, outcomes for pilonidal surgery outside of a dedicated center are generally poor. While it would be unacceptable for a general surgeon to perform an occasional coronary artery bypass, it is still quite acceptable for that same surgeon to perform 1-2 pilonidal cystectomies per month, and to do it with a flawed and dated technique.
With the pilonidal surgery morbidities of which we are all aware, the time has come for a paradigm shift in how we think about and approach pilonidal disease. The disease needs to be given the same respect as that of coronary artery disease, osteoarthritis, and morbid obesity, to name a few. Care should fall solely into the hands of specialists, who achieve consistently excellent outcomes in high volume. If you or a loved one is struggling with pilonidal disease, make the trip for an evaluation at PTCNJ.