Bad experience with Stanford....help going forward

greenspun.com : LUSENET : About Joints : One Thread

My partner has AIDS and has developed AVN over the last few years secondary to high dose prednisone treatment in 1997 for a lymphoma, continued protease inhibitor use and very slow progression of the disease. He has the disease in both hips, the left one now with limited pain on ambulation. He has no evidence on xray or MRI of fracture or collapse of the head of the femur. They say he is a STAGE 2 and they usually only do hip replacements with a 3,4 or 5. I do not know whether the lesion in the hip is schlerotic or cystic. He was just evaluated at Stanford and processed like a piece of meat. No one talked to us on the day of surgery and we were kept waiting 8 hours without any specific expectations of when he would be called into surgery. After 20 hours of being NPO, my partner was exhausted and requested leaving the hospital(at 7 PM with no promise when he might be called). We did leave the hospital. The procedure was not done and now my partner has given up. Stanford did not care or respond to our concerns about customer service. Nonetheless, we still have the problem going forward. Does anyone know of another orthopedics department who specialize in this problem in the Bay Area that is a bit more empathic to patients? We live near Stanford and they have "reluctantly" rescheduled us for November, three months from now. Also, we are wondering if it is judicious to proceed with a hip replacement while he is still healthy rather than go through repeated core decompressions which do weaken the bone and don't guarantee relief of pain or slowing the disease. My partner is 57. We are also looking into SOAR in Menlo Park and also private care through the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. By the way, I am a physician and we still got poor responses from Stanford..... medicine isn't what it was when I finished med school. We are working with my partner's doctor who is helping, yet we are doing most of the legwork at this point.

-- Frank Adair (fadair@pacbell.net), August 18, 2004

Answers

Dear Frank, I have had my right hip replaced my Standford Head of Ortho; Stuart Goodman M.D...as they all said at the time that he was the "re-do" specialist...I agree that the Stanford "ortho Clinic" is like a meat shop. I had my left shoulder replaced my Christopher Mow M.D. at SOAR...he is a bit egotistical, but did the job well. Now because of insurance chages at work, I am with PAMF (Palo Alto Medical Foundation)...ortho: John Lannin M.D....he did my right shoulder and it was a success as well ...all three surgeries at Stanford! While they are NOT the best Ortho hospital in America..if you have a friend with you as patient advocate...things went well for me and my partner. PAMF is the BEST...what team work..what incredable responses to any of my medical problems. They are a hallmark medical group that is simply outstanding...I cant say enough wonderful things. Email me anytime...Best of luck! Barb (BGchester @aol.com) end stage multi-focal ON virtually everywhere...for 10 years now!

-- Barb (BGchester@aol.com), December 02, 2004.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ