My Nonprofit Reviews

Here's my take on the good and bad at City of Hope. I am a thyroid and breast cancer patient. My first visit with the breast cancer surgeon was phenomenal. Compassionate, knowledgeable and all questions were answered. The reconstruction plastic surgeon provided answers to all my questions as well with informative literature to help me make an informed decision. Roughly two months later, I was scheduled for an extensive surgery. The hospital nurses in the surgical ward were compassionate and competent in my after surgery care. The only downer was my jewelry being "misplaced" from my personal bag (their bad) as I inadventently forgot to remove it prior to coming to the hospital (my bad). The cell phone from the personal bag did make its way back to me though. After my discharge home, I developed a high fever. I called City of Hope back and they told me to come back in for evaluation. Upon arrival, the attending nurse's first words to me were "From your call, I didn't think you really had a fever". Strange comment as who fibs about a fever. As my condition needed IV antibiotics and observation scans, I was admitted back to the hospital (general ward). The only comment I have about this ward is the availability of bladder scanning machines. One machine is shared between two floors so by the time it makes its way back to you, you already emptied your bladder and have to start the process over again. Frustrating to say the least. Five days later, my infection was stabilizing and I was set to be discharged. As I am walking down the hallways with the physical therapist, I had an unexpected and rare life threatening complication where an artery burst in my chest. A rapid response call was made as I fainted in the hallway from a hematoma. I had an excellent team of doctors and nurses come to my aid and an emergency surgery was performed which literally saved my life. Here's the kicker which should be of concern to other City of Hope patients...there was no available surgery room for my emergency situation. I was not stable enough for transport and the only reason I was able to have my emergency surgery performed was because the doctor for another scheduled surgery was running late for his procedure and my doctor was able to take over his operating room due to the precedence of my condition. City of Hope briefly changed their policy following my incident to keep an operating room available for emergencies. Soon thereafter, they ultimately decided to resume their prior policy of booking their six operating rooms to full capacity with no waiting availability for emergency situations. I am currently receiving continuing cancer care at City of Hope and have no qualms with their services on that end. That being said, if I ever need another cancer surgery, I would seek a surgeon and hospital outside of City of Hope to address that need. Just not worth the risk of being in need of an operating room and there being none. In addition, over the last two years, four of the surgeons who operated on me have since left City of Hope. Some were reknown long term City of Hope surgeons so the recent turnover seems to be a concern as well.