there have been more times (here is us) that i have been happy with the outcomes of surgery than not. for instance, my hubby had to have rotator cuff surgery. at first, i thought the doctor just wanted the money - and his arm would grow together again. but, as i found out - certain things just don't happen the way u want. when they cut his arm open (very small incision in the front and they folded the skin back over the arm) they found that his shoulder muscles/ligaments were hanging literally by a thread or two. that was bad for as much lifting as he liked to do. beleive it or not, he can lift everything he did before (but i usally don't ask him to do a lot). i don't know what the doctor did to fix this so well- but he must ahve been a vERY good doctor. also, it healed very well.
what i think is terrible is if someone has hip surgery or something and someone (whether doctor or nurse) is not as clean as they should be and the incision gets infection. this happened to my grandmother and she had to have the incision opened up again. this is unfair to patients, imo, and causes so much pain.
guess there are bad docs and good docs. t he good ones are honest, upfront, tell u the possible things that could go wrong - but make it very clear that their past patients have been happy with results. i think there are some sites on the internet where u can check doctors records by patient experiences and research.