Bob D., et al.... Right this minute my sister, holding dual citizenship and residing in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for over 30 years has an URGENT, but not emergency need to have an MRI done of her knee. Her MD told her he was going to call in all his markers and demand that she be given that MRI in three weeks or less. She received the appointment date for the MRI by mail yesterday... It's set for mid-MAY. An addendum to the appointment info was added suggesting my sister have exploratory (presumably arthoscopic) SURGERY on her knee if she needed to find out what's going on in there before May.(I SWEAR this is the truth!) I can have arthoscopic surgery to clean up and repair the torn rotator cuff in my shoulder with less than 3 weeks lead-time at Kaiser, and that includes all pre-op tests. Errrr..... does THIS count as an objective, creditable, less-than-400-page study of the two systems? Barb Mallut (not rushing out to have that surgery, tho) [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: robert l dolezal <[log in to unmask]> To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN <[log in to unmask]> Date: Monday, December 07, 1998 9:44 PM Subject: Re: Medical research in Canada >A friendly and useful article, but a bit off target when the writer cites a >"seven weeks" waiting period for surgery as a problem because dopamine is >"fast disappearing." Seven weeks? Is this writer engaged in a bit of >hyperbole? > >I wonder, has anyone done a comparison of waiting times in Canada and the >US not only for a PD related surgery but also for a broad based assortment >of diseases? And, how about the costs to the patient? The costs to the >economy? > >The Canadians with whom I have discussed health care say they would not >exchange their system for ours. I don't know if we are, overall, superior >to Canada, or they to us. Does anyone know of an objective, >understandable, credible, less-than-400-page study of the two systems? >