Hi Tim,
My understanding is that comprehensive cancer centers usually approach cases like yours as a team. The team will often include an oncologist, a radiation oncologist, an ENT surgeon, oral surgeon, reconstructive surgeons, etc. The treatment decision is the result of a meeting of the team (or tumor board as it is often called). When you talk about your doctors' treatment recommendations, are they coming from an individual doctor or from a team?

If you have different tumor boards, recommending different treatment options, you may want to read the recommended treatment protocols of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. See
http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/head-and-neck.pdf
for more information.

If the choices seem to be one of institutional preference rather than statistically based, you may want to ask in detail about quality of life issues after treatment.

Perhaps some other members of this board can weigh in with more specific advice. It does sound, though, that you are being very conscientious and becoming very well informed, both of which will be very helpful. I wish you the best in deciding upon the appropriate treatment and its success. - Sheldon