How do you check on the success rate of a surgeon?

They don't have stats like baseball players do. Even if they did, they might be misleading. Would you prefer the excellent surgeon who will take on the really tough cases that nobody else will touch, knowing that some of them were hopeless to begin with and "failed", or the mediocre surgeon who can only do the simple things?

If you know any medical people who work in the OR, you can ask their opinion. The best way to approach it is "If you were having (insert procedure here) done, which surgeon would you choose?"

You can check your state's medical board to see if they have any sanctions against them, which would, of course, be a red flag.

Check also for ABMS Board Certification, and ask how many of YOUR specific procedure they've done, and how often they do them.

MOST surgeons are good. Some are scary.

First ask him how many of these surgeries ( the one you may have) he does a year. Then go to the Medical Board website in your state and look him up to see if there have been any disciplinary actions against him. Then call the surgery dept ( talk with a surgery tech or nurse) of the hospital where you may go and ask for a recommendation of who the best surgeon they work with is for the particular type of surgery. Unless the surgeon you plan to see has written up in medical literature his exact success rate, it is difficult to get those stats ( and even in the literature it is difficult) Good luck