Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center - Houston, TX — Attraction in Houston

I have multiple chronic illnesses and unfortunately, my diagnoses are never straightforward. I have a complicated story and several health conditions unfortunately so this will be lengthy; my apologies. I’ve been diagnosed with multiple health issues, many of which cause a lot of chronic pain. Because of this, I’m in pain management. I’m always the rare case scenario, unfortunately, meaning it takes forever to get diagnosed because whatever is wrong with me often times doesn’t show up in typical blood work or imaging. Because of this, I’m sometimes not believed and instead, I end up being accused of being drug-seeking. This has happened multiple times at this hospital. Just because an ER doctor at St. Luke’s stated that she believed that I had a “secondary gain for opioids”, many other doctors decided to basically take it as gospel. The accusations in my chart were so incredibly demeaning, hurtful and insulting that they made me cry.

During June 2021, I started having bouts of nausea, vomiting and severe pain in the middle of my chest as well as the epigastric area and upper right abdomen. After seeing a thoracic surgeon, she found that I have severe esophageal dysmotility. She said that It wasn’t a structural issue so it was thought to be due to my autoimmune disorder. My symptoms persisted so I was told to go to the ER anytime it happened. My CT scans and ultrasounds were basically always normal. Eventually, the condition worsened and this resulted in multiple ER visits in a week. In June 2022, I was finally diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency and in January 2023, it was finally discovered that I have sphincter of oddi dysfunction with a fatty pancreas. It took seeing seven specialists, through different hospital systems, to finally find what was wrong.

On August 18th, 2023, I was just abruptly discharged from St. Luke’s Hospital in the medical center despite having diarrhea, persistent nausea and vomiting plus severe pain in my upper right abdomen, lower left abdomen and epigastric area; all of which were only calmed down the iv meds for nausea and pain (with the exception of the diarrhea). I was told by my GI doctor to go to the ER that Monday based on my symptoms, which were nausea, vomiting, severe pain, diarrhea that was yellow and sometimes bloody. It was painful and difficult to take any oral medications. Without the iv nausea meds, my oral medications come back up within 30 minutes. Since, once again, my basic testing was normal, I was not believed yet again, the medication that was helping me in the hospital was abruptly stopped and I was discharged. Before I was discharged, however, I was accused of being drug seeking yet again not only from the hospitalist but from my own GI doctor, which was extremely hurtful. What hurt the most is that when I first met my GI doctor, I told her exactly how I’d been treated by several doctors at this hospital accusing me of being a drug seeker despite having actual pain and diagnoses yet she turned around and did the same thing. That same hospitalist accused me of being drug seeking when I had pancreatitis in May 2022 because “my reaction to him pressing on my stomach in certain areas did not match the “appropriate” pancreatitis pain areas.” To make matters worse, I had a hemorrhagic cyst on one of my ovaries at the time which would only increase the pain areas!

I should add that when I spoke with patient advocates at St. Luke’s, they refused to allow me to speak to someone higher up to discuss this issue and made sure to say “It’s not going above me”. I requested this meeting because despite the proof of my diagnoses, the drug seeking accusations that all started from that one doctor are still interfering with and preventing proper care. I get the same response each time from patient advocacy, which is “We will look into this further” only for them to tell me that it’s being dismissed with no actions...

I am in the hospital receiving overnight post op care. I am a Baylor patient and St. Luke's is Baylor's teaching hospital. Baylor is suffering reputational harm from its association. This facility will be closing down which may explain its poor condition. St. Luke's will be moving to a new and better facility on Baylor's campus. A new hospital will not cure operational mismanagement. Reluctantly I will switch my primary medical provider from Baylor to ensure that I no longer have to seek treatment at St. Luke's. Everything about the hospital experience suggests how to run a hospital as cheaply as possible while having no concern about the patient. There is no waste because they offer nothing. The initial staff members could not care less about the patients and I was receiving almost no post operational care. No one showed me how to use the bedside controls or where they were. There is a compression medical device hooked in my bed to prevent blood clots. It does not work , no worries and no substitution. No signs of warmth and concern from the initial nursing staff. Since I had a 5 hour surgery earlier in the day, you would think someone would ask me if I needed assistance getting up and going to the bathroom. They gave me a urine bottle and wanted me to keep it in my bed after I use it instructing me not to call when used. My initial review was very negative but the later staff was good. Ella and the person taking my vitals were very professional and caring. As far as the hospital food, St. Luke's is saving money by providing the cheapest quality food at the lowest cost. Nothing was fresh prepared and lukewarm microwave food. Warmed over canned food at its best. The hospital has a hotel floor for patients who want excellent care. Unfortunately they do not prize their insurance and Medicare patients. Two types of care and no regards for the patient. I was a patient at MD Anderson and there is no comparison. MD Anderson was a world class hospital and St. Luke's is a hospital that is run as a cost cutting machine. St. Luke's may want to to see how its neighboring hospitals conduct business and learn. The Baylor contingent however is excellent and the reason I as able to give the hospital a star. The hospital also needs to have experienced hospitalists at night. Another example ineptitude is that I was having blood work done at another St. Luke branch. After intake there was no one at the front desk area, I told her that no one came to take my blood. She called the technician and she asked him if anyone told him there was a patient. I could hear him and he said "no". She told me that he was finishing with a patient and he would be right out and I let her know that I heard him say no. In the waiting area at the medical center branch, I spoke to other patients who had problems with the billing department which did not initially bill in network insurance carriers and wrongfully coded medical procedures covered by insurance to non covered procedures. My wife had the same experience The hospital wanted me to do additional and repetitive lab work but would not give me a lab order so I could do it in a convenient manner. One problem after another revealing systematic failures. They either need new management or consultants who can help revamp the hospital. This is a sad fate for the hospital that spawned so many medical innovations under Dr. Denton Cooley and is affiliated with a first class...

I really believe this hospital failed my father and that is a painful reality I'll live with the rest of my life. My father had stage one lung cancer and had all the trust in his surgeon, Dr. Robert Taylor Ripley, to perform his lobectomy. He felt so confident that he was in the hands of someone with the utmost knowledge and expertise. Though my father's cancer was detected early and should have been a relatively simple procedure, he did have an underlying lung disease (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, or IPF) which added a level of complexity to the situation. My father asked Dr. Ripley ahead of his lobectomy if his IPF could cause any potential problems with this surgery. The doctor assured him not to worry about it, and anything that arose would be taken care of. He NEVER warned him it could have the grave consequences it did and ultimately be terminal!

My dad went in for his lobectomy on November 17, 2023. Dr. Ripley discharged him three days after the surgery. I will never believe it was safe for the doctor to send him home that early when his case was complicated by IPF. I truly believe he should have been monitored in the hospital for several more days to make sure no post-surgery complications occurred. Instead, three days after his return from the hospital (Thanksgiving day) my father's oxygen levels plummeted and it turned into a prolonged nightmare from there. My father was in the hospital for over six weeks with intense inflammation and scarring on his lungs due to the surgery triggering his IPF into overdrive. Throughout his whole stay Dr. Ripley would come by briefly (less than a minute) early in the mornings to "check in on him," but would never, ever explain to our family what was happening, ask if we have any questions, or show an ounce of compassion or concern!! It pains me every day to think this doctor my father trusted so much seemingly didn't care about him at all.

The people I would like to thank are the nurses who did seem to care about my dad's life and his humanity. Thank you in particular to nurses Bethany, Austin, and Mary in 7 South 3 for taking care of my dad in his final days - making sure he was as comfortable and well-attended to as possible, and also extending kindness to our family during those horrific times. Thank you as well to the other doctors who did the same for our family - Dr. Rizvi and Dr. Zhou to name a couple. I will never forget how you bestowed a little bit of light on us during our darkest time just by showing you cared about my dad.

I know the pain of losing my dad will never go away. It just hurts more living with the additional torment that the surgeon did not prepare us for the possibility of any of this, and he didn't take every possible precaution to prevent this tragic...