I can no longer remain silent on Brian Cole, MD, as too many friends and patients have had…read moreunpleasant encounters and unfavorable, if not disastrous, outcomes over the course of 15 years. Not unsurprisingly, if you have ever met him, they have spoken to me of his arrogance and self-importance, of his cavalier attitude about surgery and of his brusque and dismissive bed side manner. In the words of one friend, who has endured chronic pain and stiffness in her right knee since a minor surgery at the hands of Dr. Cole, 'Brian is all about Brian, not the patient.'
Ironically and regretfully, I count myself among his former patients, a fact that revisits me almost daily with anger and bitterness for nearly 17 years.
To be brief, I moved to Illinois in 2007 in order to be in closer proximity to my parents living in the Chicago area. One day while working out at a local fitness center I injured my knee while doing a partial squat with a relatively low amount of weight; initially, I gave it little thought, but the next day, my knee significantly swollen and very painful.
I had not yet established a relationship with a primary care physician and so, after a search on the Internet, I found Dr. Cole: He billed himself as 'Dr. Cartilage,' boldly publicized on his Web site that he was the Bull's team physician, that he was NBA's physician of the year, that he appeared on the cover of Chicago magazine's "Best Doctors' issue, and had he published multiple papers and made many presentations at national and international conferences.
I figured that it seemed reasonable that if Dr. Cole is operating on million-dollar knees, it would be a good bet he would be a great choice for the microfracture procedure on my left femoral condyle - it was supposed to be a simple and quick procedure with a quick recovery: he even promised that I would be able to return to running and playing tennis and soccer within one month.
I followed his post-op PT protocol faithfully, was the model patient, but month after month, the pain and swelling continued, and even weight bearing was at times intolerable, and month after month he kept reassuring me to be patient and wait: despite this long unusual and delayed recovery, Dr. Cole displayed no concern or curiosity, demonstrated no interest and ordered no tests - he simply advised NSAIDs and ice.
Finally, after five months, I went to another orthopedist, this time one associated with the University of Chicago, who immediately ordered imaging studies, which revealed significant osteonecrosis (dead bone) at the site of the microfracture -- there was bone destruction about the size of thumb. This was a serious condition which required an OATS procedure, months of PT, a full year of wearing a post-op knee immobilizer, and a follow up chondroplasty. What borders on the negligent was that Dr Cole did not even consider a set of X-rays, despite my repeated reports of severe pain and the failure to recover as promised. When I confronted him with failed microfracture, Dr. Cole never made an apology, never displayed even a hint of sympathy, and with a shrug only offered a total knee replacement. My trusting this surgeon's judgment and advice was absolute stupidity.
Since the efforts to repair the damage of Dr. Cole's surgery, I have not been able to jog, much less run, not been able to play pickle ball, much less tennis, and now even standing for any length of time is extremely uncomfortable, and it forced me to abandon a job where I was on my feet for 8 - 12 hours a shift to a job where I am mostly seated throughout the day. Though this fiasco happened over 15 years ago, I still hobble around in pain and try to endure with the aid of gel and PRP and stem cell injections with little success and great expense.
An ironic footnote to this story is that I actually met one of Dr. Coles' former OR nurses several years later. I had never disclosed my experience and opinion of her former boss, but she told me at dinner, that in effect, he was always rushing from one OR to another, or one airport to another, and was hardly ever available for questions; and apparently soon after my surgery Dr. Cole was a plaintiff in a whistle blower lawsuit involving Medicare. Over the years, I have found that many of my patients have found that not just Dr. Cole, but many of the orthopedic surgeons at RUSH Midwest to be equally arrogant and they are equally disappointed, even demoralized, by the unspoken RUSH motto, 'Surgery is the best and only solution and we are the best and only surgeons.'
