Alden B. Casanave, MD STAY AWAY FROM THIS DOCTOR IF YOU NEED SURGERY. Dr. Casanave is/was the Chief of Orthopedic surgery so you'd think he should be very good and very competent to perform a simple achilles tendon repair. Dr. Casanave performed an achilles tendon repair on me several years back and a few most post surgery I unfortunately had an allergic reaction. I needed revision surgery to remove the sutures that my body was rejecting. That's fine. I could deal with that. What was not fine was when I asked the surgeon what type of suture he implanted in my body he said that he did not know. I got my patient records from the OR nurse and no record of the type of suture was recorded. The doctor told me that I'd have to go under the knife again to remove the bad suture. Not knowing what type of suture he used the first time, I was not confident in his ability to make a better decision the second time around. He could easily implant the same type of suture he used the first time around and I'd be in the exact same situation. Dr. Casanave was very unsympathetic and very defensive when I asked him about the suture. He came off very callous and uncaring. He also would not look me in the eyes while talking. He always looked away which was just odd in and of itself. I couldn't believe how incompetent/not thorough he was as a surgeon not to record the type of implant he placed in my body. Documenting implants is standard operating procedure in hospitals.