My husband and I will be filing a report with all medical boards in the state of NC, Rex Hospital in Raleigh, and the UNC Hospital System. Here is our experience:
My son has/had a pilonidal cyst. We live in Western NC, and were told by surgeons that we needed to go to a metropolitan area for his surgery. I spent countless hours investigating. It is so hard to find a dr. with no referral. From the http://www.pilonidal.org/ website, I found that there was a doctor that did this type of surgery .. Dr. Jerry Stirman. We live 4 hours away from Raleigh, but I called Rex Surgical Specialists and requested an appt. for my son with Dr. Stirman.
I don't know what is going on, perhaps Dr. Stirman is in the process of retiring, but the office staff couldn't/wouldn't make me an appt. with Dr. Stirman and assured me that Dr. Paul Park (another dr. in the practice) had a lot of experience with pilonidal surgery.
I drove 4 hours to take my son to see Dr. Paul Park. He said that surgery was necessary. We decided to do the surgery over the summer, since he is a college student. My first indication that Dr. Park was not a good choice was when we left and he said "any of the surgeons in the practice can do the surgery, it doesn't have to be me." .. as if, he was not really interested or the procedure bored him. As a mother, I should have realized that this was a warning sign.
Summer time came. I scheduled Michael's pre-op visit with Dr. Park for his surgery. We drove 4 hours to Raleigh, and Dr. Park was not in the office that day (really?). The receptionist said that someone called me the day before that Dr. Park would be out of the office, but there were no messages on my cell phone. One of Dr. Park's associates examined Michael before his surgery (doesn't give a Mom a good feeling from the start).
One week later was the day of surgery. Dr. Park told me that the surgery should take 1.5 hours. We arrived at 7am and surgery began at 9am. By noon, I was concerned .. sitting in the waiting room, no news. Around 12:30 Dr. Park came out and said the surgery went OK and "we will have to see how it goes" .. fair enough. I assume he had a resident close up, because he was long gone before surgery was over (according to the surgery board at Rex Hospital). At about 2pm, I got an update from the nurses that my son was nauseous from the anesthesia. The nurses at Rex Hospital were wonderful. About 3:00pm, I got another update that the nurses were concerned about the amount of bleeding from his incision. They had called Dr. Park and were waiting for him to come back to the hospital to examine my son.
At 3:30pm, they called me back to recovery (finally), and gave me his discharge instructions. The nurses were still waiting for Dr. Park to come back to the hospital to check my son's incision before they would release him (thank God)!. Dr. Park finally arrives and removes the bandage from my son's incision... blood WAS SPURTING out of the incision. Dr. Park did not even look at me, he just said "we have to go back into the OR" and left.
The nurses were all scrambling because they had given my son food and drink (and of course that's not good if you have to go under anesthesia). My son is miserable. He went back into the OR. At about 6:00pm. Dr. Park came to to the waiting room and said that they had cut an artery and fixed it, but still there was no prognosis if the surgery was successful. At this point, I asked if he was going to admit my son to the hospital for the night .. he said "fine" .. gee thanks ...
The nurses at Rex Hospital took wonderful care of Michael through the night. My son's surgery was on a Wed., and he left the hospital on Thurday with a drain in his back. The plan was for the drain to be removed on Friday. Dr. Park said he would rather remove the drain on Monday .... fine .. whatever is best for my child. We stayed in a hotel near the hospital from Tuesday( before the surgery) until the following Monday .. a hefty 1K in hotel charges. Note: the money is not my issue. I kept vigorous records of his drainage. On Monday, his drainage from his previous 24 hours was 40 cc. I felt that was a lot and expected to stay in Raleigh until the drain should be removed.
Went to my son's dr. appt. at Rex Surgical Associates on Monday.. saw Dr. Park and informed him of the drainage .. he dismissed me and removed the drain.
10 days later, traveled 4 hours to Raleigh to get sutures removed .. wound had not healed properly.
Long story short, over 2 months pre-op and my son is not healed. Neither Dr. Park or his nurses have even called to follow up to see how my son is doing. If my son needs another surgery, we will NOT be going to Rex Surgical Specialists. We are dealing with a Wound Care Center in Asheville.
My dog received better care and follow up from my veterinarian when he had surgery. Sad, but true.
p.s. Rex Surgical Associates also botched the insurance claims. read more