Wow, my ENT pretty much insisted on doing a neck dissection even though there wasn't much to indicate it, and it came back clean. (Wish I hadn't had the surgery, but that's a different story.) I'm surprised yours won't if there are indications that something is amiss. Or ... are they already planning to do radiation? Because what my doctor was doing was checking to see if there were any affected lymph nodes ... and if you already know, then maybe there's not a need to do the surgery, and that will save you precious healing time. Ask what the plan going forward is, if you can. If they're going to radiate the heck out of the area, then this way you don't have to wait for the surgery to heal first, and that could be a good thing.