I went to Dr. Duda for reconstruction of my left breast after mastectomy. I got her name from the Castle Connolly list of top doctors. The office is pleasant and well organized. Dr. Duda was polite, though not particularly open or friendly. My disappointment came after surgery when I realized she had placed my expander in the wrong direction. This ultimately led to an additional, revision surgery. (Read on for details.)
When I got home from the outpatient center my breast had a very unusual shape. As Dr. Duda filled the expander it became more and more apparent that it had been placed incorrectly, rotated 90 degrees clockwise. At my six week appointment Dr. Duda asked me to open my compression bra so she could examine me. With a look of disgust she closed it quickly, instructing me to wear my compression bra for another six weeks. (I wonder now if perhaps she thought I hadn't noticed the very odd shape to begin with.) Of course I had immediately noticed the shape. But I know that doctors are human and everybody makes mistakes. I didn't want to make a big deal about it because I figured that once the expander was exchanged for an implant it would look alright in the end. That is where I was wrong. Since the implant was rotated, my breast was being expanded top to bottom rather than left to right.
By the second month my breast looked so deformed that I decided to find a new doctor for my next surgery. The surgeon I went to is highly regarded, one of the leading plastic surgeons in the field of breast reconstruction. When he did the exchange surgery he expanded me surgically from left to right and put in some internal stitches to prevent the implant from slipping into the space at the bottom of my breast pocket (which was now very long due to the rotated expander.) At first everything looked great. However those stitches didn't hold. About three weeks after the surgery I was lying in bed, propped up on my elbow, when I felt a series of pops. I knew exactly what had happened. Sure enough over the next few days the implant fell into that pocket and was sitting several inches below my right breast.
My first thought was to just live with it. It's only a breast, right? But Six months later I couldn't stand it any longer. My breasts were so off balance that the difference could be seen even if I was wearing a padded bra. I decided to have a revision surgery to fix the problem. In the end, the surgeon had to put in a "sling" made of pig skin to hold the implant in place.
There are many excellent plastic surgeons in the Washington D.C. area. If I had to do it all over again, I would not have chosen Dr. Duda.