Banner - University Medical Center Tucson | Tucson, AZ | Campbell Ave. — Attraction in Tucson

I am a doctor who was formerly employed at Banner and left on good terms. I waited until transferring jobs before posting this review, which pertains to my experience as a patient. I had a miscarriage in October. The obstetricians were horribly unprofessional, especially Dr.s Dudick and Hsu. Dr. Dudick left me in the dark and essentially ignored me after my first appointment, when it seemed pretty obvious that I had miscarried (according to the time that had elapsed since my LMP and also a pregnancy test that was positive at four weeks after LMP, I should have been 13 weeks pregnant at that time, and I’m skinny, so the informal ultrasound he did should have been able to see that large of a fetus). I had to harass him to get certain basic labs collected and more official testing done, which was initially ordered incorrectly. The office staff wasn’t very helpful in rectifying this. During his interpretation of the transvaginal ultrasound, Dr. Hsu was highly unprofessional. There was what appeared to be a six-week fetus with an eight-week gestational sac (no heartbeat), though again, it should have been a fetus large enough to be 13 weeks old, meaning the fetus had died in me seven weeks prior. My husband and I realized this and started crying, and Dr. Hsu interrupted us to talk about an irrelevant loose acquaintance we had. I repeatedly tried to ask him about my risks of getting sepsis or infertility from a seven weeks dead embryo in my uterus, but he refused to answer that question. He also tried to make me get a repeat unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound a week later, but my original ob and I decided to trend bHCG instead, and it obviously downtrended, as that embryo was very clearly dead and had been for a while. Also, Dr. Hsu berated me for not coming in sooner, even though I called to schedule an appointment the day after my positive home pregnancy test (when I was four weeks pregnant), and the soonest they could fit me in was at 13 weeks. I know every pregnancy has a roughly 1/4 chance of miscarriage and was awaiting that appointment anxiously for nine weeks. I had difficulty obtaining the medications to help expel the dead embryo from my body, and my ob wasn’t very helpful. I eventually obtained one of the pills (there should have been two types, but the other one was nearly impossible to obtain. This was without counseling about what to expect from the ob, an ongoing theme. Again, I’m a doctor, but not an ob, so I don’t know all of the specifics about all things ob), and I wasn’t sure how much I’d bleed after. I ended up hemorrhaging so much that I passed out. When I came to Banner’s emergency department, I was bleeding profusely still and in excruciating pain. After my initial vitals, no other vitals were checked until hours later, when my blood pressure was about 80/40. On my labs, which I had forced them to check, as they weren’t taking me seriously, I had lost about 3 grams of blood (about 1/4 of the blood in my body). It took hours for an IV to be placed (which made me feel like my life was in danger. As a critical care doctor, I know that IV access in the context of hemorrhage is crucial) or for the obstetricians to come and remove the piece of dead embryo that was stuck in my cervix, causing me all of that bleeding and pain. By the way, the procedure that stopped my bleeding and pain took about three minutes to perform. The nurse and provider (PA, who never examined me and spent less than a minute with me in total… but I was still billed for those “services”) were pretty absent. One of my husband’s colleagues (also a doctor) saw how much pain I was in and how much bleeding there was, became deeply concerned, and tried to get me care. I also tried with no avail to advocate for myself. I thought I was going to die there. I fear for those who go to Banner and aren’t in healthcare, especially if they don’t know how to advocate for themselves appropriately. I don’t know if TMC or the other competitors are better, but as a healthcare worker, I can say that this was...

I would like to shout out to the AMAZING staff in the ICU. The nurses and docs were top notch. Communicative, helpful- just lovely human beings when we had a family member in crisis many years ago. Their a la carte sushi is pretty great too. You’re curious now aren’t you? My poor review is based on an issue having to do with the Patient Portal for the pediatric department. Each of our sons were diagnosed at the age of 12 with a chronic health condition. Banner’s legal interpretation of laws regarding the privacy of 11-17 year old patients is hindering patient care. Parents are denied Patient Portal access at their child’s 11th birthday. No patient under the age of 18 can sign up for their own portal. This means that parents are essentially blinded to their child’s medical chart from age 11-18. This restricted access affects the care of pediatric patients. Parents can no longer reach out to physicians via the portal. Leaving a message and receiving a call back from your provider’s nurse with a 24-48 hour turnaround time leaves many parents no option but to head to Urgent care or the ER for issues that could easily be resolved with better communication. It is so frustrating to have a health issue going on with your child and wait the customary 24-48 hours, only to miss the call and have to begin the process of leaving a message again! There are other clinics outside the Banner system that allow parent access to online records and communication with physician’s offices. We have used the services of a Children’s hospital in Colorado as well as another emergency facility in Tucson and were SO pleasantly surprised by the immediate access we were granted to test results, imaging and doctor notes. Because of the “glitches” in the interpretation of legal terms, we don’t experience that kind of seamless care within the Banner system. This has to be fixed for the health and safety of Tucson’s children. This set up invites class action suits from disgruntled parents who’ve had enough of the “rules” getting in the way of their child’s care. I understand that a parent can request records from Banner regarding their child’s medical record, however, timeliness is a real issue. As stated, not having access to digital records or the ability to communicate seamlessly with physicians is an unacceptable practice. I encourage and support the protection of children’s privacy but loathe the way that those protections have been interpreted and implemented here. When a child with complicated health issues can be harmed by lack of parent involvement because of legalities something has to change, someone has to speak up for the children. I’m not talking about reproductive health conversations, I’m concerned for children who’s complex health issues require the involvement of multiple specialists to care for them in an ongoing manner, who at the age of 11 are cut off from the transparency of their chart. I do not know of any 11 year old that can manage a complex medical diagnosis without the oversight of an adult. Please help direct me to the legal department or a decision maker with whom I may further discuss this issue. Surely there is a creative solution that will help better meet the needs of the children and entire families in Banner’s care. Each and every one of those kids are worth the investment of seeing this issue resolved. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Update: Filled out the online form sent to me by Banner. I truly hope to hear from them so that the conversation about this topic...

Doctor Nathaniel J Kim five stars, 100%! The negative one is for a problem I’ve had with administration and the supervising cardiologist. My honest review is as follows;

I came to the cardiologist because I felt my heart skipping at night and because my other doctors told me that they have a hankering that perhaps I may have Ehler Danlos Connective, tissue disease.

I don’t have much hope when I go to the doctors anymore because they just want to put Band-Aids on problems and operate on issues. I’ve also gotten to the point where it’s so hard emotionally to keep fighting for my own health.

This is why Dr. Kim gets a five star review from me.

He looked at me as a holistic person. He listened to my entire history and even asked more questions I hadn’t thought of. He told me that his recommendation will be that I wear a monitor for 30 days and that I get a sonogram of my heart so we can see if there are things going on that might be invisible on an echo for example. He told me that one of the problems I’m having is that many of my doctors are treating me like I’m in the 95th percentile but I am indeed not in the 95th percentile given my current ailments and my age. All signs point to a genetic disorder. I was thrilled that there was a doctor on staff that was going to look at my situation, holistically and go as deep as he needed to down the rabbit hole to help me start getting answers. Because he is a fellow and supervised by cardiologist I did have to wait for his supervising doctor Corbin to enter the room.

Dr. Corbin entered the room Proceeded to treat me like I was the 95 percentile like every other doctor I had ever seen. He cut down my testing to two days instead of 30. He cut down my imagery from a sonogram of my heart, suggested after my complete intake, and put in its place an echocardiogram, which is impossible to Rule or confirm a diagnosis. Instead like a Band-Aid, he wants to treat me for the skipping heart only. I almost started to cry for about 30 minutes I had began to have Hope and Faith again in Western medicine because of Dr. Kim.

It is very difficult to take a cardiologist whose BMI is clearly not appropriate. How can he care about me if he doesn’t care about him?

I plan to continue seeing Dr. Kim and avoiding Dr. Corbin and making sure that I am with any other cardiologist when I visit.

I’ve also asked my daughters to keep everything I’ve been putting in writing in case something happens to me so they know which doctor in particular denied services that were recommended.

Dr. Corbin also told me that because I have hypermobile joints that the Ehler Danlos I have would not be VEDS which is vascular Eller Danlos, which means it would not be connected to my heart.

This was misinformation at best, and absolutely not true. In fact, if we go to Ehlers-Danlos news and we look at an article, put out by Patricia Inacio PHD in cell biology, we can very easily read the following

“ all four vascular EDS patients analyzed had normal echocardiogram, but seven out of the 16 with EDS showed dilation of the aorta. Cardiovascular complications occurred in six patients four with classical, and two with vascular EDS.”. This proves that not only is what he telling me incorrect, but it is also...