It's not the technique, it's the surgeon.

It is so interesting what happens when people move and need to go the doctor or dentist again. Lots of times, they get in the car or airplane and make their way back to the people they trusted near their old homes. I can certainly understand them. I have never been viscerally attracted to the French medical system, but this experience got me a lot more familiar with it. First of all, the number of times you need to spend time with the medical community is a lot greater when you have a "condition" than when you have the flu or get a sore throat, and when you are going to get surgery, for something, you need to pay close attention to the talent pool. For prostate surgery, all of the American surgeons I consulted with emphasized that this is about finding an experienced and accomplished surgeon.

How does one become one? I think the answer is apprenticeship with one that already is. In any case if the surgeon is not doing at least 100 or more a year with a good track record you might want to keep shopping.

The other thing is statistics. Gerald Chodak states the matter clearly in his video about laproscopic and robotic surgery techniques. If they cannot talk serious statistics, it is another bad sign. I am a little sheepish about the fact that I do not have my specific doctor's statistics, but I do have the numbers for his whole organisation, and he is the senior active surgeon there.