Having weighed in early in al this, I have stayed on the sidelines lately. I hope that what you come away from after reading all this is that the people that have replied to you, actually care that you make good decisions. I don't think that any here have agendas nor facility affiliations that color their opinions. So the pushiness, to at least get a second opinion from another high quality institution is out of care not from some other source. Tough love perhaps.
There are HUGE disparities in healthcare in the US, something that until you are thrown into a situation like this you may never consider. They range from those with no insurance or job trying to find treatment (anywhere as hospitals for the most part are all run "for profit") , to those with insurance but in states that do not harbor cutting edge institutions, to people in HMO's that are constricted to seeing only those who will take the much lower reimbursement SOME HMO's are willing to pay (and make no mistake the best doctors get paid well), to people who are financially able to go to any institution in any state. There is no equality in health care. For having the most expensive health care system in the world, it is not applied equally to all of our citizens.
When you look at the US News and World Report on cancer hospitals that rates them, you get a rating based on survival statistics, modernness of equipment, education of doctors, number of doctors and nurses per patients and so much more. It is very unbiased. In general while some use the NCI designated institutions as quality, or the CCC system to judge them, I usually find that teaching institutions attract wonderful doctors who get paid well, are funded in a way that allows them to attract the best and brightest, as well as have the most modern and cutting edge technologies and equipment, and have (should the need arise) a great deal of FDA approved clinical trials being run there on experimental treatments and drugs, which is something not available to many hospitals. Of course those clinical trials are often last ditch attempts to beat the disease when standard of care (NCCN guidelines) treatments do not do the job.
Understanding all this, and getting your head around the idea that anytime your name and the word cancer are used in the same sentence it is usually not a good thing, or something that you should take casually, and lastly once all this is apparent - that a (any given) doctor is not equal to other doctors nor an institution or hospital equal to any other hospital, then there will arise the issue of NAVIGATING all this to your own optimum outcome.
I hope that what you get is that all of us want that optimum outcome for you, nothing more or less. While we have all had our own paths through this, and we have made both good and bad choices, and had varying degrees of health, difficulty, and long term quality of life issues after it all, we all have learned from that process, and have learned from each other. While there are still some disagreements between many of us, the one thing that the survivors who give of their own time freely for no compensation have in common, is that they come here to help those behind them on the path expecting nothing in return. While not doctors, nor experts, I would wager that the combined knowledge of people on this board, ABOUT THIS SPECIFIC DISEASE AND THE COLLATERAL ISSUES THAT ACCOMPANY IT, exceed that of many professionals in the industry who are not oral cancer specific doctors.
Like all the others, I wish you the wisdom and desire to make the best possible choices, and hope that your path through all this is as brief and successful as possible, with a rapid return to an active, happy, and normal life.
