It's sad, but hospitals in the USA are indeed typically for-profit businesses, and in order to operate they need to stay in the good graces of the insurance companies. Don't get me wrong, the people caring for you there truly do care for you, but at the end of the day there's always a department at a hospital that looks purely at numbers.

So why did I confidently choose my center with the lower survival rate? I did so because I believe that providers learn by the difficult cases, situations that challenge them and get them out of their comfort zone. I'm alive today because in 1986 a hospital, surgeon, and patient took an enormous risk and successfully completed the world's first double lung transplant.

I had a major complication very early after my surgery and the medical director of the lung transplant program was there bedside with me late at night and he was trying to decide what the best possible intervention that I needed was. I was an absolute wreck, and I recognized the fact that this man likely had seen hundreds and hundreds of transplants in his days, and they weren't always the easy cases...and now I was suddenly not an easy case. I'm glad he was there because that extra experience of handling many other patients with severe complications may have been what saved my life, and I'm grateful that I not only woke up to see the next day, but I'm still here 14 months later. I'm sure my complications helped them learn something, and hopefully it can help others as well.

I also know an individual (names/genders/etc withheld for privacy) who had a very complicated condition and who needed a transplant. That individual was denied at dozens of other centers simply because it was too risky. My center gave that person a chance, and unfortunately the individual still passed away. My center's survival rate went down because they gave someone a chance at life that no other hospital would take, and I'm proud of them for trying their best when everyone else flat out refused. My friend wouldn't have had a chance otherwise, and I'm grateful that my center gave them one.

So before looking blindly at survival rate, try to look at WHY the survival rate is what it is.