United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Does anyone know anything about Dr. Nath. Is it worth taking my 15 year old son to him. My son does not have a severe case of brachial plexus but still wants what is best for him. He has had one surgury when he was 7 at UCLA to rotate the arm over.

Please help not sure what to do!!

Thanks,
Rachel

I'm sorry I can't help you I am very new to this I am a grandmother of a 6 month old that was born with a shoulder arm problem I am not really sure what you call it but I need help my self. mabe some can also help me? Dr Nath said my grandson needs mod quad surgery, and Triangle tilt surgery. but we don't even know him? but we also heard Dr Kozin is very good and Philadelphia Shirners Hospital is also very good. can any one help? please!

Dr Nath is a very good doctor and as far as brachial plexus injuries, he really knows his stuff!! My son is 13 and was first operated on my Dr. Nath when he was 9 months old and has other surgeries w/nath since then and sees him on a yearly basis for follow up. He is a very good doctor.

Dr Kozin is another excellent choice. He is at shriner's in Philly. It never hurts to get a second (or even 3rd) opinion.

when my son was born in 1997, Texas was THE place to go, but now there are several excellent surgeons. We didn't know of them at the time, so it was Texas for us.

Get lots of opinions and then make your own educated decision on what is best for your child.

Hard age to be different... My son is only 12, we were assessed in person by TCH when my son was a toddler, or baby, we were told he needed surgery by two populAr BPI specialists but we are doing pretty well, who knows if we had surgery maybe we would be doing better, or...maybe not. Hard to say. Best of luck.

We love LOVE love Dr. Nath. We just returned from Houston from my daughter's ModQuad surgery after having a prior nerve transfer surgery here @ home. Dr. Nath's background and depth of knowledge, with all the patients he's helped, are invaluable. At post-op, he referenced a case of a girl several years before and her similarities to my daughter's case to help inform treatment. I find that SO important since there are SO few that know a great deal about these injuries. He is talented, knowledgeable and truly cares about his patients. I would HIGHLY recommend him!!!

I met many Dr's while researching my daughters injury. Initally I liked Dr. Nath but ultimely used another Dr for her surgery. I am thankful I did, he did not want to do any surgery until she was 9 months old because he felt that she had bicep movement that would eventually get stronger. She ended up having surgery at 4.5 months and the nerve damage that was discovered during surgery was very substancial. She would not have gained any elbow flexion without surgery. The surgery Dr. Nath would have done at 9 months would have also helped her, but I felt more comfortable with her having the surgery earlier. I am glad we did not wait. Many people love Dr. Nath, and he is a good Dr, just not the right one for me.

We have a resource page on this site. You can look up all kind of information about the different docs who do bpi surgery.

I suggest you get at least 3 opinions. Each child is different and there are many different opinions as to how to treat bpi.

We used Dr. Nath and were not happy with the results. We have been to many of the surgeons and most of them are very "user friendly" and will respond quickly to emails if you have questions.

Mostly, we see Scott Kozin at Shriner's Philadelphia and Andrew Price in NYC.

Ask a lot of questions.

claudia

You mentioned ucla, so maybe you are in southern california. I strongly recommend Dr. Stevanovic at CHLA. He is amazing, and I would travel across the country to use him if I had to. We have used him a few times already and he has my complete trust and respect. An O.T. we had begged us not to use Dr. Nath, stating he recommends the same steps/surgeries to all his patients, does not back up what he does with scientific data and is not allowed to attend certain largely attended lectures on brachial plexus injuries b/c he is not accepted by a large amount of doctors in the brachial plexus community... Again, this is what we were told. There are strong opinions for and against Dr. Nath, so you may want to do your own homework on him aside from this site.

I agree with most of what everyone is saying here on this post. The most important thing is do your homework on all the docs. Dont just go by the hear say that people put on here. They are all GREAT doctors who are doing the best they can to help our kids.

I'm sort of torn. We saw Nath last year to get a second opinion for my son. He was great with my son. He recommended that he needs the mod quad and triangle tilt surgeries.
My son had his 1st surgery with Dr Kozin at Shriners, so we still follow up with him on a yearly basis. Kozin thinks my son is doing really well and doesn't think he needs any surgery right now. He said it's not worth the risk of losing some of the function he already has as it's really pretty good.
So now I've seen 2 top docs with totally different opinions. Leaves me to wonder what is the right choice? Another big factor was the fact that Dr Nath is out of network with my insurance. So I'd be responsible for anything the insurance doesn't pay. They estimated that for the 2 surgeries, my out of pocket would be around $30,000. They wanted a $5,000 down payment to schedule the surgeries and then were willing to make a payment plan for the rest. I just couldn't afford that. So now I still wonder, have I done my son a disservice? I don't know the answer to that, I just know he's doing really well the way he is. I'd hate to put him through 2 more surgeries at this point because in his case, I don't know how much more function he'd gain.