UChicago Medicine — Attraction in Hyde Park Township

This place is terrible. Communication lacking, Dr’s and other staff arrogant, over priced and they do not hear what they don’t want to hear. Family member was diagnosed with needing open heart surgery. He was freaked out and said he did not want to do it. I go online and look for alternatives, come across uchicago medicine and their robotic minimally invasive (TECAB) surgery. Send them a message, this is 12/18. Get response a the next day that they will need all the testing images and notes that he has done. I make the calls to get the necessary information from his cardiac doctor, this is 12/19. Because of the holiday I am told it may take a couple of days, get a call on12/23 the discs are ready and can be picked up, I go get them. I can’t deliver until 12/26, I make the drive and deliver all the discs and information I have. No communication until 1/7/25 and this is an email from the Robotic and minimally invasive surgery coordinator informing me we have an appointment for 3/5 with an attachment about TECAB. This leads me to believe we will be scheduling the surgery. I accept the appointment writ this thought in mind. Longest 2 months of my life. Appointment is for 1 pm, advised to be there 1/2 hour early, because of where we are traveling from we end up an hour early, don’t get taken in until after 2. First we meet with a nurse practitioner who is talking about open heart, I reiterated that we were under the assumption that we were to schedule TECAB. She informs us that he is not a candidate, told her if TECAB was not an option we would go back to his original cardiac guy based on proximity to home and ease of access, she leaves, two others come in for what feels like an intervention, to come to terms with open heart. I again state multiple times that if this is the case we would return to his original cardiac doctor, they leave, 20 minutes later the Doctor we originally came to see, comes in, this is the doctor who would be doing the surgery. He explains why he is not a candidate for the robotic surgery and again states talking about traditional open heart, I explain yet again that we would go back to the original surgeon, he also mentioned there was a missing test, a cardiac CT, his coordinator mentions she needs the disc and that they have requested it and have not received it yet, should take a week. Wait and wait and wait, nothing. On the 25th of March I hear from yet another doctor that the disc has not been received. Told them I would get the disc and overnight it to them. disc went to them on the 26th of March. On the 27th I get a call from the vascular Dr office to schedule an appointment. I ask about a virtual appointment and was told he would find out and get back to me, told him i had just got the disc and it would be there in the morning, seems the got the second disc they requested and the $40 I just spent was for nothing they don’t need it, and he was calling to schedule an appointment I asked if it was for traditional open heart and he said yes, told him I was not interested, please send my discs back as I am talking with another Dr. Get another call the next day to confirm do I want the discs back or am I setting and appointment, I said I want the discs back expidited please, finally got them back on 3/28 along with a bill for just under $500. I would have never kept this appointment or agreed to this appointment had I known he was not a candidate for TECAB, so not only did the set me back two months, the 8 hour appointment day was a waste of time, I would have saved a lot of time and money if someone would have looked at the discs I delivered back in December and made the decision that he was ineligible and sent that in an email it would have saved me close to $1000, $453 on the bill, $13 on parking, gas, a day off of work, the added aggravation of being stuck in city rush our traffic all if we would have been advised before hand that he was not eligible. They should pay me for the myriad of mistakes made. I expected better from such I highly...

I was a patient at the pain clinic here. I saw my doctor a few times, they tried a couple of things, they didn't help that much, but my doctor seemed hopeful at least. Later she retired, and I had to go in to see a new doctor to renew a prescription. I thought since it was a full appointment, I'd be able to explain how my pain was and that I'd finally gotten a diagnosis of EDS, and what different treatment options I could try, since my pcp had run out of ideas and said I should try more with pain clinics.

I didn't get that chance, the first thing they said was they can't help me, they tried everything (they tried 2 things, out of maybe 15 or 20 they say they offer on their site, many of which Ive heard could help me). The appointment was over in a few minutes, I had trouble explaining things since I was upset because of what they said initially. So I might as well not have gone.

Since the pain clinic was kind of my last hope at this point, I tried the patient advocate number. I talked to someone there, she thought it was unfair and recommended I call them and try to explain, so I could make another appointment. I did, and talked to the receptionist, who said she would leave a short note, and that a nurse would call me soon, I could talk to her, then she would talk to the doctor. Great! Except that didn't happen. The nurse talked to the doctor first, and since the receptionist only left a short note, I got a voice msg repeating the same thing: we can't help you, we tried everything (yeah not really), ask your pcp to find someone else.

I just wanted to explain to them that my pain had been getting worse and my current medications weren't helping, that I can't go back to my pcp again because he's already run out of ideas. And while before they had fibromyalgia as my problem in my file, I finally got a proper diagnosis of EDS which is often mistaked for fibro, I thought that might be the issue, since many doctors often don't try as many treatments for fibro.

I talked to the patient advocate again, who said she would talk to them soon. 2 weeks later, one of the nurses called, who thankfully listened to what I had to say. She was sympathetic and said they'd make me another appointment, and they'll call me in the next few days with an appt time.

2 weeks later, and still no call, I finally called them. The guy who answered couldn't find anything about them scheduling me for an appointment, and said hed find out soon. A week later, he left a voice msg saying the schedule was full, but he put me on a waiting list or something, and he called to "assure me that they didnt forget about me", and that even if they couldnt find a way to get me in the schedule, theyd call me by the end of the week to update me.

3 weeks after that and still no call, I called them again, the person who answered once again couldnt find anything about scheduling me, or a wait list or anything. She said there was no room that month, and that I couldnt make an appointment in advance past this month, I'd have to call later when they get a schedule.

I asked if I could make an appointment with another doctor who might have openings, but was told I couldnt see a different doctor.

I tried again a couple more times in the following weeks, but it was the same. No idea about the people I talked to before, no way to make an appointment with any doctor.

I just stopped trying. It's humiliating to call and get nothing over and over again. Even with the patient advocate talking to them more than once, they still would never call back. Either there's no communication between anyone in that department, or they just didn't care. I'm not sure which one's worse. I was strung along for 3 months, thinking Id be able make an appointment, during which my nerve pain kept getting worse and worse, I ended up in the ER and psych ward for suicidal thoughts from the pain. Since then I was thankfully able to find a similar place that would actually treat me. Big rant, sorry if anyone read this...

10 day admit, no Drs/teams were on the same page for entire stay, iv in arm but no fluids administered once nor was it changed or cleaned properly, arm was swollen up when I was unexpectedly discharged, I sat for days with no care getting worse, last day I was there, I had the same mean negligent nurse, there was an accident in the room with myself after a bad reaction to something I was taking, nurse was called, she eventually came, opened the door, husband told her we needed help, she looked at us, then closed the door like she never saw us, my husband had to get me in the shower due to the accident, I couldn't walk, shower was cold, there was nothing in the room to help clean me up, I was violently shaking and crying out in severe pain with distended abdomen, told the nurse to get a Dr later when she finally came back, she didn't, told me to just drink more water, 😳, my husband was left to try and put a bag over my arm w/ the IV in it by himself due to having to try and get me under water, we learned to bring just about everything you could need becuz you won't get it hospitals, he used our scissors/tape to cut a bag and wrap it around my arm so it wouldn't get iv wet, I had one nurse who actually treated me like a human the whole time i was there, i left in worse shape then when I arrived, Drs wouldn't listen to what happened to me with a drug reaction and how the nurse didn't get help, they discharged me unexpectedly with same problem I went in with, told me to take same meds i had already reacted to, i had to take my clothes off in front of drs to be taken seriously for admittance, I don't live in the area and we didn't drive that far in that bad of shape to be sent home , upon seeing my sick body, they then wanted to admit me right away, I was not hooked up to monitors except a heart one i asked for, my hr dropped low into the 40s and i was gaslit that it didnt happen, this was one of many things that happened, the event severely traumatized me, have PTSD now from it and still slowly dying from no care with same issue as I live in an area with little care. I thought bigger city hospitals were supposed to be better. I was admitted as high risk, told it was too risky to give tpn, I looked about 70 lbs due to lack of food and GI not working, they sent me home worse off. Would never ever go to this hospital again, it was problems and issues across the board, I asked for socal worker and advocate every day and never got one. Things that happened were not put in my chart which has caused lack of care trying to find help elsewhere, even tried calling many times to explain what happened and nothing came of it. I know it's not just me, there are many people out there with similar reviews of negligence and Drs not caring, getting gaslit/dismissed and people not getting care they need. The medical system is broken. If Drs don't like their jobs, leave! Vs taking it out on a...