I had a series of pretty miserable experiences with this office and with Dr. Singh personally.
I chose Dr. Singh for my bariatric surgery because I thought he seemed knowledgeable at the information seminars he gave, and because several nurses at my PCP's office recommended him. My first meeting with him was at the end of August 2013. I told him I wanted to have surgery at the end of December or beginning of January. He said that was fine. He told me to lose x-amount of pounds, work on getting surgical clearances from the cardiologist, pulmonologist, and psychiatrist, and come back in two months, scheduling the appointment for October 22nd.
Then his staff called before 10/22 and asked to reschedule for October 31st. I agreed. Then they called the day before Halloween and asked to reschedule again. When I told them that I worked two jobs and was in school full-time, and therefore could only come in between 3-4pm on weekdays, they said they couldn't accommodate that until the end of November.
Then they rescheduled AGAIN, and I didn't get in to see him until December 2nd (putting me 5-6 weeks behind schedule). He hadn't told me that I would have to do a barium swallow in addition to the endoscopy, so I didn't realize how much we still had left to do before the surgery. When I was told that they couldn't schedule the endoscopy until December 13th, I was obviously upset, because my anticipated surgery date was fast-approaching.
The endoscopy was a total mess. It was supposed to begin at 9:15am. Around 9:30, I was wheeled into the O.R., but Dr. Singh wasn't there, and the staff couldn't reach him right away because he had left his pager behind. This was not very reassuring; I would like it if I knew that the surgeon I was relying on for after-care would have the presence of mind to keep his pager on him. Then, at 9:50am when he finally showed up, he said, "You guys could have just come back and gotten me. I was just having coffee."
Seriously? Lie to me. Tell me you were saving a life or something. Don't be late, then act like it's someone else's job to make sure you are where you're supposed to be.
When I awoke from the endoscopy, I had really bad pain under my chin from them doing a "chin thrust" to maximize my breathing. Nine days later, it is still tender to the touch. And Dr. Singh found inflammation, for which he took biopsies, but he didn't stick around to tell me this after I woke up from sedation. He just left? And told the staff that I should come see him in two weeks to get the results of the biopsies.
So he wanted me to come see him on December 26th, meaning that even if he approved me THAT DAY (the 26th) for surgery, when you factor in the amount of fasting that has to take place before surgery, I wouldn't go under the knife until January 10th -- past the window that I told him I needed to have the surgery in order to complete my recovery before going back to school/work.
He had to be called back to the endoscopy department to talk to me, and he didn't seem particularly interested in speaking to me at any length. I asked him if he had a plan to get me into surgery during the time frame we had agreed upon, and he didn't even remember what the time frame was. When he realized it was rapidly approaching, he said, "Okay, why don't you call my office on Tuesday and see if there's anything open then?" Meaning, he would have the biopsy results in FOUR DAYS, but he had wanted me to wait TWO WEEKS to come to his office to get them.
Incidentally, I *was* able to get in on that Tuesday. But when I presented all of these issues to him, his reaction lacked sympathy, compassion, and apology. He sat there and counted off on his fingers: "One, I can't go back in time and find out why you weren't able to get here for, what, five weeks -- so there's nothing I can do about that. Two, if you're concerned about being able to get in contact with me, you can go to Bayhealth and get the numbers of some of my other patients who are willing to talk to you, because I think you'll see that they haven't had problems." And so on. He didn't apologize for ANYTHING, he just said, "If you don't trust me, then don't have me operate on you."
I'm in the process of switching surgeons now.
Tl;dr: Surgeon is very knowledgeable and seems very competent, but office has little regard for keeping appointments; surgeon has little regard for patient's time constraints; surgeon lacks punctuality, empathy, compassion, and humility. read more
