Demonstrated Near Total Mastery In My Surgery and Post Op Care.

4.75/5 stars. Grade A Dr. Loren Schecter and all the staff at the Weiss Hospital Center for Gender Confirmation Surgery Provided me with the humanly best possible experience and for what things did go wrong they did their best to rectify those. That expert control of what they can and correcting for what they can’t is the mark of a true master and the theme of this review. I chronicled the experience IN REAL TIME with videos attached here. Some of the files are too big and will have to be rendered smaller... OR I will combine them and provide a youtube link. Also find my twitter feed @Hontas_farmer or Instagram @twospiritone or my blog which you can find by Googling my name "Hontas Farmer". I will try to make this as self contained as I can though.

THE GOOD
I HAD NO MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS worthy of the word "complication". There were some issues with a staff member or two perhaps having a bad day. We all do. Everything within human ability to control was either controlled to keep me healthy or corrected for if it went wrong.
This isn't going to be "one magical day" where you get hit with a bolt of magic and suddenly have perfect pain free swelling free parts. (It does not happen like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utDlnzwKqG0&t=6m46s ) Leading you to thank God. BE REALISTIC… IT IS SURGERY. MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS CAN HAPPEN. They didn't to me. THERE WILL BE PAIN, it will be managed. It will take me and you a year of healing to really know where things are at.

I laid a foundation by working out and eating right for two years while wrangling with insurance companies. Dr Schecter and his team then built on that foundation and did surgery so well that I was able to get myself out of and into bed by about postop day 4. Most don’t. After working with the physical therapist from Weiss hospital I learned how to get up correctly. (I still can’t just sit on my fanny yet).

Dealing with insurance and paperwork. Some blame Schecters office for this but I happen to know the struggles they have are common to medical offices and have been for decades. Most are because by convention doctors offices use fax to send documents instead of signed PDF’s via email. Once we found a work around for the fax machine… the problem went away. Then there is the fact that insurance coding for getting SRS/GCS covered is more complicated than the code that runs your computer!

In short after two years of trying with various ACA plans and different in network primary cares to get this paid for… I bought into a comprehensive Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois plan at work. It got me 100% covered with help from Dr Schcters office and Dr Keglovitz my primary doctor at Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago.

THE BAD
Nothing bad.

THE UGLY
The only things that went wrong were three staff members and a trainee would misgendered in talking to or about me and two also did things like not make sure I had my call button/respond in a timely fashion. About day two post op... after having been on a morphine pump one of the two left me without my pain meds for 45 minutes. I had an ORGASM OF PAIN due to that.
I complained to Dr Schecter and he complained to the hospital and every administrator you can imagine came to check on and speak to me. The unit nursing administrator Martin King apologized profusely. The only "complications" I had were these incidents... more for the medial faux pas of a couple of staff who didn't make certain I had my call button and some other things. Changes were made and that didn't happen after that.

Everything within Dr Schecter and Weiss Hospitals control that could be done right was, and when it wasn't they corrected it. Furthermore, if you go there after me I am confident these issues will have been handled.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Like many I had assumed the best and almost only good surgery for this was in Thailand or Canada. WRONG.

Given the above I can only give this experience 4.75 of 5 stars. Then note that the things that went wrong are things I am sure they will strive to make better. Have confidence in them and weight really short messed up reviews on this very poorly. Believe Dr Schecter’s peer reviewed publications more. I also had the reassurance of my primary care doctor Kristin Keglovitz-Baker PA who has seen Dr Schecter MD’s results heal over time. Now I a fellow transwoman are telling you. He is a great surgeon in a great city in the United States of America. SERIOUSLY CONSIDER HIM.

Get your [RS bleep] from him before it’s the trend

I am two weeks post op today and had my first dilation appointment. Dr Schecter recommends less dilation than most surgeons. Right now I am on the smaller dilators and will work up to the larger ones. He very gently showed me how to get them in along with his resident/assistant Dr Whitehead and staff members. I have sensation in the clitoral area and all around. With a little bit of a pins and needles sensation mixed in. I think this will all be ok when things settle down especially the swelling.


You have to use A LOT OF LUBE to dilate. The one place I knew of to get a LARGE quantity of lube right away was an adult book store. Larger quantities can be found on amazon too.

It has been one year and I am now fully healed from surgery. With the swelling all down and everything healed up I am deep enough and wide enough to be sexual with most any man. This was a team effort. Dr Schechter did FABULOUS work on me. He guided and instructed me on after care. I followed his advice almost without fail. (One time I was forced to lift something that was over the weight limit very close to being post op. Don't do that.)

Thanks to him and my making sure to follow his advice I have healed up pretty well.