University of Michigan Health-West — Attraction in Wyoming

Came in vomiting blood and with several pulmonary emboli in my lungs (was having chest pains and difficulty breathing associated with that as well). Dr Marc Afman was incredibly condescending and unprofessional. Zero care or compassion, and a humongous God complex. It’s a wonder his head fit through the door. I vomited blood right in front of one of the nurses, but since my hemoglobin wasn’t at a “critical” level yet, he actually sent me home after doing NOTHING to help. My fiancé told them that IV Benadryl helps my nausea tremendously (I’m allergic to all other anti-emetics, so it’s basically one of my very few options). He refused to give me any because he said there was a nationwide shortage and they only had one vial in the entire hospital and he was going to save it for someone with an allergic reaction (basically he wasn’t going to “waste it” on me). I find that story incredibly unbelievable being that I was just in Zeeland hospital a few days prior, where they found all the embolisms, and they were giving me Benadryl every 6 hours to control my nausea. Why would one (very small) hospital have plenty of it, and an even bigger hospital only have one vial?! Nice try Afman, but I’m not a moron. So when he refused to give me that, my fiancé told them (I was too busy puking blood to say anything) that the only other thing that they’ve tried that has helped is IV Ativan. Mind you, I have a port in my chest because I have several chronic illnesses/issues that require IV access, blood draws, and home IV meds. So I have it accessed currently so I can give myself those meds. He claimed that if they gave me Ativan, they’d have to de-access my port. Ummmm...what?? That makes no sense and he gave us no good explanation for his reasoning. There’s so much more I want to say, about this visit and past visits (not sure why I even went back there after my last horrid experience), but it would likely turn into a novel and I just don’t have the energy for that now. Saw my family dr today and found out my hemoglobin dropped drastically. He mentioned being be re-admitted to the hospital, but I begged and pleaded to try anything and everything else we could before doing that. I. Ak he added a second I’m on a new home IV nausea Med. His biggest concern is me keeping my blood thinners down, to get rid of all the potentially fatal clots my body is producing. Afman couldn’t care less whether I was able to keep it down or not. Not to get too graphic, but let’s just say I wore myself out so badly from vomiting, that I fell asleep with my head hanging over the bucket. I spent 2.5 hours at my awesome family doctors office today (Timothy Childers PA-C, and he has been AMAZING!) I know MANY doctors, PA’s, and nurses who could sure take some lessons from him.! Hs cane up with some plans to try get me feeling better and healthy again. Thank God for him because had I just went home, I could’ve easily died from the clots OR from bleeding out. Again, Afman could NOT have cared less. I have a past, but I’ve been in recovery for three years now. Still, to Afman and the rest of the metro staff, I’m just another junkie. Not worth their time or resources. I hope none of them have to experience any sort of addiction themselves or with someone close to them. It’s a sort of Hell that I’d never wish on anyone. But it would be nice if doctors still took their hipocratic oaths seriously, because Afman did absolutely NOTHING to help me, and instead, put me right directly in harms way. Hope he sees this and hope he can figure out how to be a bit (actually, a LOT) more humble as well as caring and compassionate, one of these days!! Until then, go ANYWHERE but Metro if Marc Afman...

My usual health system is Trinity health. I received a firsthand lesson today as to why they are leaps and bounds above Metro Health. U of M saved my life, by coiling a difficult brain aneurysm that neurosurgeons here in GR failed to complete. Because of that, I go to Metro strictly for the Neuro team that is tied to the amazing U of M Dr that saved my life. I had only been to the Metro campus once prior to today. My memory served that it was south, so I hopped on 131 S to head to my 9AM appointment. However, my GPS kept attempting to lead me to E. Paris. I pulled off the highway to try a 2nd GPS platform and received the same directions. It didn’t seem right, so I called. The scheduler told me this is a frequent issue, and they do not know why it is happening. She would not transfer me to imaging, but promised to send them a message to let them know that I was on my way, as I expressed that I would be losing my insurance in the coming days and really needed this MRI. She did her best to give me directions, and I attempted to find the building that I had been to once, without a GPS. I went to the “professional building”, as that was the only place I had been to meet the neuro team. I stood at the information desk for a minute, awaiting the lady to look up from her phone. I finally said “excuse me”, and asked if this was where I was suppose to be for an MRI. This was at 904. She let me know I was in the wrong building, but that I could take a hall all the way down. I arrived at the correct desk at 908. I made it up to the desk for my turn at 9:10. The lady at the desk also echoed that this is a frequent issue, but that “they’re not the GPS”, so they do not know why it keeps happening. Obviously, this is a frequent and well-known issue, yet they give ZERO warnings to patients regarding it. I stressed again that I would not be able to reschedule due to a pending loss of insurance so she called back to the lab where someone said that they would see what they could do. They had to attempt to reach someone named “Ed”. 2 minutes later, at 912, they called back to the desk and communicated that Ed said to send me away. I was a whole 12 minutes late for what could be lifesaving imaging, my screening/check in had already been completed online, they had been told in advance that I was struggling to get there but that I was in route, yet zero compassion was shown for the hell that was my morning in trying to reach this office. To Ed, I hope your power trip and lack of compassion lead to you having the day that you deserve! I can only pray that my coils are still in place, and that no new aneurysms have developed, as who knows how long it will be until I can receive what should be yearly...

Poor service, poor hygiene, poor communication from the doctors. My family member was just in the ER twice in the last 48 hours for an incision tearing open after metro employed doctor performed surgery on almost 2 weeks ago. The residential doctor in the ER came in and started roughing scraping away the blot clots that had formed on the open incision causing my family member even more pain... (did not apply any hand sanitizer and no apologies for causing pain) the Dr stated that there was no active bleeding at the site. She walked away. I had to go retrieve a nurse to get my family member some pain medication bcuz my family members call light was not being responded to. After a nurse finally brought some pain medication in, the doctor came back and told us that she was going to leave the site open, apply steri strips to the remainder of the incision that had not ripped open, apply one suture at the top of the site where it had stopped tearing and put nitrate on the parts of the incision where he was bleeding... (the same doctor had just told us that my family member had no active bleeding not 20 minutes prior) once the doctor had put sterile gloves on before washing her hands, she had put iodine around the site attached a needle to the lidocaine and started to put lidocaine into the site. The doctor was applying so much pressure that the needle was bending each time she would push through lidocaine and she was spinning the needle in almost 90 degree angles while the needle was still inside my family members body. My family member still in pain, asks for more Dilaudid, the doctor said yes. So a nurse comes in, scans in the Dilaudid and gives my family member the Dilaudid... (did not use hand sanitizer, wash their hands or wear gloves.) The nurse did however use hand sanitizer distributing the Dilaudid) the doctor then starts to get the suture ready and once she put in the suture, she attempted to tie it and did not tie it tight enough. So she had to cut and remove the suture so she could try again. Once the suture was in, the nitrate was applied and the steri strips were down the doctor took her gloves off and left all of the dirty equipment on the tray she was using and walked out to write up my family members discharge paperwork... (again not using any hand sanitizer or washing her hands) worst service and hygiene i have ever seen in a hospital!!! Will never come...