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13 Questions To Ask Your Surgeon Before Heart Valve Surgery

Written By: Adam Pick, Patient Advocate, Author & Website Founder
Published: April 6, 2025

During our recent webinar, "6 Expert Tips for Heart Valve Patients", our expert panelists including Dr. Doug Johnston, Dr. Melissa Medina and Dr. Kevin Hodges of Northwestern Medicine got into a meaningful conversation about the 13 questions patients should ask their surgeons and heart teams before scheduling a procedure. (Click here to watch a video replay of this special webinar.)

Questions to Ask Your Heart Surgeon or Cardiologist

Within seconds of sharing this list, my chat lit up with many requests for the questions which I did share in our new free eBook, "6 Tips for Heart Valve Patients". Since then, I received several more requests from patients about this list. So, I'm going to post this list here in my blog to help you:

Why do you think I need surgery?
What type of treatment do you recommend? Why?
What are your patient outcomes for that specific type of treatment?
Are there any other less-invasive treatments to consider? What are they?
How long have you been performing heart valve surgery?
How many heart valve surgeries have you performed?
Do you specialize in aortic, mitral, tricuspid or pulmonary therapy?
How often do you treat patients with my specific form of heart disease?
What are my greatest risks from a heart valve operation? How do you manage those risks?
What do you expect as the best result from this operation? Why?
What can you tell me about the recovery from heart valve surgery?
Do you think I will need another operation in the future? Why?
How should I think about the lifetime management of heart valve disease?

Please take the time to ask the important questions you need answered BEFORE surgery. You should feel empowered to ask these questions to your potential surgeon or interventional cardiologist. As I tell so many patients, "Heart surgery is not a hair cut. You only have one heart. You want to find the most experienced doctors and team for your specific type of heart valve disease. When you are being rolled into the operating room, you want to be 100% confident in your doctor and your heart team."

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.

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