and a half months to have his surgery. the dallas va where mitchell had his surgery tells cnn this meets the standard of care at the va and that mitchell didn't have a typical type of skin cancer and therefore did not have a typical treatment plan. we talked to cancer surgeons outside the va and they say they don't wait two and a half months to operate on their patients. more like a few weeks at the most. >> the patients here wait months to get their cancer removed? >> no. certainly not. dr. carl is a cancer surgeon. he did a study of cancer surgery wait times at the va compared to other hospitals. >> the waits were roughly twice that of community hospitals. >> reporter: waits to remove liver cancers or colon cancers were more than twice as long at the va. his team first reported their findings three years ago. >> reporter: do you think anything's gotten better? >> i don't think anything's really changed. >> reporter: you wouldn't let your patients wait months for a cancer surgery.