Good lord you poor girl. I’m so sorry

Oh my god, I am so sorry you're going through this bullshit.

I hope you're finding the resources to manage the problems you're having. Please tell me you have a good patient advocate in your corner.

Edit: the complications I had seemed bad enough, but they've been dealt with now after 1 revision. Hopefully no new complications come forward.

I cannot stress here enough to find a competent gcs surgeon. I have had urinary issues from day one after my surgery with Sidhbh Gallagher! After she revised my urethra for a third time, once again it began to close in me. I saw a local urologist this past fall who is a very competent gcs surgeon in his own right and he found my problem in less than 30 seconds. My urethra was placed in the wrong place! How could this happen! I have had it fixed and my quality of life has improved tremendously, now I face several other procedures as I have issues with numbness and loss of sensation in my clitoris and vagina. All of this because I thought it would be best to stay close to home and go with a surgeon that also performed surgery on a couple of my friends. About every single one of us that I know personally has some sort of issue post op that used her.

My god... I'm terribly sorry. Thank you for telling your story and helping other trans and nonbinary folx choose a better surgeon. I'll be sending good vibes your way... I sincerely hope things get better for you.

This is a post by itself, but it's kinda meaningless without the context of the OP.

Wait, wait...I've been at this for four years --non-stop. This story is so much bigger than the results of my Vaginoplasty. Much of it I haven't even revealed. I don't take any of this lightly, but I'm not about to make accusations that aren't true and that I haven’t personally experienced or documented.

Here’s the perfect example of what I’m talking about.

I have copies of the 300 plus emails and 100's of intimate images of my body post-surgery that I exchanged with her Dr. Gallagher and her Patient Coordinator --for over a year. The emails came from multiple domains, devices and locations. IU-Health does/did have a secure patient portal, but Dr. Gallagher did not use it. All of our communication was done via unencrypted email and without the written consent required.

According to Indiana Administrative Code on collecting electronic patient data (below), all of this correspondence must be maintained as part of my records. Later ,down the road, when I filed a HIPAA security complaint, they couldn’t find any incidents of the breach I described because they had already deleted all of these emails! There were only about 5 or 6 in the patient portal from the tail end of the entire year period that remained. To avoid responsibility for what they had done, --they simply removed them.

These were back and forth emails involving my care and appointments. There were image assessments and diagnostic information from Dr. Gallagher. They might have seemed irrelevant to some administrator, but they weren't. They documented my state of mind and my care. Unfortunately, they also revealed things that the IU-Health legal counsel must of felt were riskier than me filing a case with the AG's office. Instead, they just made up a reason for down the road and removed them. I was told that counsel removed all of these records because they were patient initiated . Oh that's rich. Unfortunately, even if that was true --and it's not even close, the Indiana Administrative Code and HIPAA regulations do not provide any loopholes that give them the authority to remove electronic data or emails that were generated through the Physician/Patient medical records. It's an absurd excuse.

They didn’t want those records to be read because they tell a much different story than they make excuses for. The worst part of this was not discovering this deletion for over two and one half years. Six-months of that time was spent just to get the medical records they hadn't removed.

Read the code below, Think about your own communications via email. Just to be clear. Gallagher’s practice did none of these things listed below. And they knew it.

From the Indiana Administrative Code

https://www.in.gov/pla/files/Internet_Medicine_Rules_2003.pdf

Rule 3. Appropriate Use of the Internet in Medical Practice

844 IAC 5-3-4 Electronic communications

Authority: IC 25-22.5-2-7
Affected: IC 25-1-9; IC 25-22.5

Sec. 4. (a) Written policies and procedures must be maintained by the physician for the use of patient-physician electronic mail. Such policies and procedures must address the following:

(1) Privacy.

(2) Health care personnel (in addition to the physician addressee) who will process messages.

(3) Hours of operation.

(4) Types of transactions that will be permitted electronically.

(5) Required patient information to be included in the communication, such as patient name, identification number, and type of transaction.

(6) Archival and retrieval of patient medical data.

(7) Quality oversight mechanisms.

(8) Protocol to be followed in emergency situations.

(b) Policies and procedures must be periodically evaluated for currency and maintained in an accessible and readily available manner for review.

(c) Sufficient security measures must be in place and documented to assure confidentiality and integrity of patient identifiable

information. Transmissions, including patient e-mail, prescriptions, and laboratory results must be secure within

existing technology, that is, password protected, encrypted electronic prescriptions, or other reliable authentication techniques.

(d) Patient-physician e-mail pertinent to the ongoing care of the patient, as well as other patient-related electronic

communications, must be maintained as part of, and integrated into, the patient’s medical record, whether that record is paper or electronic.

(e) Turnaround time shall be established for patient-physician e-mail and medical practice sites must clearly indicate alternative form or forms of communication for urgent matters.

(f) E-mail systems must be configured to include an automatic reply to acknowledge message delivery and that messages have been read. Patients must be encouraged to confirm that they have received and read messages. (Medical Licensing Board of Indiana; 844 IAC 5-3-4; filed Oct 1, 2003, 9:32 a.m.: 27 IR 523)

844 IAC 5-3-6 Medical records

Authority: IC 25-22.5-2-7
Affected: IC 25-1-9; IC 25-22.5

Sec. 6. (a) The medical record must include written or electronic copies of all patient-related electronic communications, including the following:

(1) Patient-physician e-mail.

(2) Prescriptions.

(3) Laboratory and test results.

(4) Evaluations and consultations.

(5) Records of past care.

(6) Instructions.

Informed consent agreements related to the use of e-mail shall also be filed in the medical record.

(b) Patient medical records must remain current and accessible for review and be maintained in compliance with applicable state and federal requirements. (Medical Licensing Board of Indiana; 844 IAC 5-3-6; filed Oct 1, 2003, 9:32 a.m.: 27 IR 523) 844 IAC

Sorry for what you are going through. You are not the first person I'm seeing who had a disastrous surgery with her.

I was told to come and check out your story because I was going to go to Dr. Gallagher. Looks like I'll keep looking. Ideally I'd like to have it done in Florida. Better support system.

Dr. Al Kassis at Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN is really great and experienced! I’m so sorry this happened and I hope everything is resolved and you can enjoy your life and your body.