Dear Dr. Roach: I have a friend who had gallstones and ultimately had her gallbladder removed. When they went in, they saw lots of infections, cleaned her out, and put drains in her liver. She’s been feeling awful and weak, and she wants to get a second opinion. Which type of specialist should she see? — D.L.G.

Answer: Treatment for a complex problem like hers often takes a team of specialists — in this case, certainly a surgeon and very likely a gastroenterologist and an infectious disease specialist. The ideal person to see now might be any of these specialists, especially one who saw her in the hospital and knows her case. However, it sounds like she may have lost confidence in the team who treated her initially.

Getting a useful second opinion would require getting this specialist the information they’d need, which would include imaging studies, operative reports and microbiology reports at a minimum. A surgeon is unlikely to be interested unless it’s clear that further surgery may be necessary, so I suggest that she starts with a generalist or gastroenterologist.

I’ve been involved in cases where a person who had a complex hospital course at a different medical system was admitted to my inpatient service, and getting the necessary information required many hours of work. With electronic medical records that can talk to each other (sometimes), this can be done much more easily now. It’s more feasible in the inpatient setting, but I hope your friend doesn’t get any sicker that she needs to go in the hospital.

Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu.