USC Arcadia Hospital — Local services in Arcadia

I wish I could give this hospital -5 stars for the emergency room only. I am writing this to apprise you of a beyond distressing, surreal experience that I had in your emergency room 9/27. I would have written before but every time I think of this incident, I become distressed and tearful. So, at the advice of several professionals, I am doing this as an attempt to put closure on it … if I could ever do that.

As I write this, I am struggling to type with hands that have been numb for over two months now. And back and hip pain that hasn’t healed as yet … making movement still difficult. All because of a fall that I incurred in your emergency room on 9/27/24. And a bleed that happened soon after that endangered my very life. That may or may not have been partially or wholly caused by the fall.

Truth be told I have sought advice from my own lawyer and a medical malpractice one … who informed me that … unless something went radically wrong and I almost died (I actually think that this does suffice but am unwilling to pay the fee that the lawyer requires) I don’t have a case. So this appears to be my only recourse.

Let me take you back to that day … I passed out at my work as a dietitian/eating disorder expert at BHC Alhambra Hospital and was sent to your ER. Where a nurse that will remain nameless harassed me verbally for 6 ½ hours until I tried to get up and leave, resulting in passing out again and a fall off the examining table … a fall where I sustained injuries.

The very kindly doctors had been in earlier … telling me that I was suffering from dehydration and ordering a liter of hydration (as a health care professional, I understand when orders are being given) and that I’d be admitted and most likely released the next day. I never got the hydration. I instead got two small cups of water in the entire NINE HOURS in was in the ER.

Not only that … I was never given a call light until I fell … which necessitated me yelling for help as there was no other way to communicate with your staff. But that wasn’t the worst of it!!!

FOR SIX AND A HALF HOURS THE NURSE SCREAMED AT ME … YELLING THAT I WAS MENTALLY ILL AND A BAD PATIENT. That was the surreal part, and I didn’t piece together what had happened until much later … when a therapist colleague said to me “She thought you were a mental patient” as I work in a mental hospital.

Whether or not that was true I have no idea. All I know is that the nurse harassed me so much that I tried to leave … and stood by when I fell (she was two feet from me screaming at the time). I sustained injuries to my hands, hip, and face (see picture … the only one I had the good sense to take).

After the syncope and fall, they gave me a call light and the nurse finally stopped harassing me. But later when I tried to explain myself to her and asked her if she understood. She said “no”.

As a health care professional myself, I am beyond appalled at this treatment. The nurse made assumptions … I suppose … that weren’t true. And harassed me verbally to the point where I had to get away from her, resulting in a fall. The sad thing is that … when I told my story to the person who brought me up on the floor FINALLY after nine hours of torture he said he had heard of other incidents involving this same nurse and LAUGHED!!!

I know that you probably won’t … but the nurse should be fired for this behavior. And … of course … I have no other recourse but to PUBLISH THIS REVIEW ON GOOGLE AND YELP!!!

I am also going to visit Patient Relations with three copies of this letter IN PERSON today as I have called five times and have only received a callback once when I was in a meeting. Fortunately, I can make a living with my private practice online. Because I cannot return to the hospital I worked in due to these injuries. I can barely walk and it’s difficult to write or type …

If I wasn’t this fortunate, I would lose my livelihood, my home, and possibly my sanity as … for the first time in years … I am suffering from depression. My only hope is that you will take my...

My father became sick in December 18th, 2019. He had a knee replacement that was rejected. My father developed sepsis and his condition worsened because the emergency doctor and staff and the orthopedic group could not be bothered because it was Christmas time. A doctor from my father’s orthopedic group, Dr. Le, finally came Christmas Day and explained to us that if they drained my father’s knees, there would not be much success because it was already eight months after the implant surgery and my dad needed a Kyphoplasty to have the implants removed. Well, no one followed that doctor’s advice because they just drained one of my dad knees. The doctor, Dr. Lee, a doctor from my father’s orthopedic group finally came to perform the surgery to drain my dad’s knee almost TWO WEEKS after my dad was admitted. I guess he was done with his Christmas celebration, thankfully. This is sad sarcasm on my part. You may be wondering why they only drained my dad’s knee when they knew it would be ineffective? Well, the doctors from my father’s orthopedic group and from Methodist did not know how to perform the Kyphoplasty, so instead of calling for someone who did know how to do the Khypoplasty, they just drained my dad’s knee. My father finally did have the Kyphoplasty and it was only after I convinced my mom the hospital was terrible and the doctor’s from my dad’s orthopedic group negligent and spoke to the PATIENTS RIGHTS ADVOCATE at Methodist. It was too late for my dad though. He lived till August 5th, 2020 but when recovered was exhausted from the journey from the sepsis, the surgery to drain his knee, the Kyphoplasty, a tracheotomy, and pneumonia. This is testament to how strong and healthy my dad was. He fought hard. If he received the proper care he needed from the start, he wouldn’t have had to have been subjected to the inexperience of the ER doctors at Methodist and the selfish entitlement of my father’s orthopedic group. If you read this, be proactive when a loved one is ill and read everything regarding the illness from the doctor and their notes and take notes of everyone who interacts with your loved one and everything that is done. Hospitals and doctors are no longer about caring about the individual but treating an illness and in the case of Methodist and my Dad’s orthopedic group, it better not be at Methodist and not a holiday. Most importantly, you have to have an action plan for your loved one and call the doctors you need for the surgeries and see if they take your insurance and so on. If you are waiting for guidance, you aren’t going to get it, not at Methodist anyway and certainly not from that Orthopedic Group during Christmas or any holiday or probably ever. Methodist also needs to get rid of the teen volunteers that pass out the labels you wear to enter the hospital too. Too young for a job that requires compassion. The chatter, the attitude (I’m doing this to get into college), everything, inappropriate, unprofessional, and insensitive. The staff is not diverse either and some doctor’s and nurses need sensitivity training. For example, the doctor that was going to perform my father’s tracheotomy told my mother, “My dad would die in a rehabilitation facility alone.” He did. Thanks for that. I’ll carry that with me till I die with the guilt for taking my dad to Methodist, and the look of trust on my dad’s face the day we took him for help on December 18th, 2019. He hoped to feel better and was strong like a bull, wanting more time with his wife and daughter. Methodist and that orthopedic group are terrible, simply put. My dad was exemplary but his care wasn’t. The service at Methodist is Medieval torture in the 21st century. I hope and pray that things change. No one should have to experience that. May God, the Virgin, Jesus, all the angels, saints, those who have passed and are with you now, if you are reading this and need guidance, may they guide you to the care you need and heal your loved one, If they can not, may they guide them to their...

DO NOT BRING FAMILY HERE. My aunt who was dying with stage 4 cancer was in the emergency for 3+ hours without any help because they “couldn’t find the bloodwork results” and it was because of the staff’s NEGLIGENCE. They took the blood and left the vials on the counter in my aunt’s ER room for OVER 3 hours! Once I brought this to their attention they profusely apologized and tried to gaslight us into understanding there’s a lot of patients in the emergency— THAT DOES NOT EXCUSE YOUR NEGLIGENT BEHAVIOR. We moved her to another hospital.

Unfortunately my grandfather was taken to this hospital by ambulance when he had pneumonia. He was under the care of Palliative Dr. Cortez during his recovery with pneumonia. And Dr. Cortez lacked complete emotional awareness, professionalism, and had terrible bed-side manner.

He gave my grandfather a death sentence which turned out to be a false alarm and caused my family to experience unnecessary emotional turmoil and trauma. This ALL could have been avoided if he had taken the time to first get the full results of my grandfather’s condition instead of making assumptions and condescendingly demanding we hold a conference to have my family decide between hospice and a feeding tube causing my family extreme emotional distress before my grandfather even took the swallow test recommended by the Speech Therapist.

We spent days grieving and mourning and had to plan a really difficult family dinner to make a decision between hospice and a feeding tube because Dr. Cortez made it clear that my grandfather wouldn’t be swallowing food and his body was preparing for death by his weight even without conclusive results yet from the Speech Therapist. Dr. Cortez assumed because of my grandfather’s BMI he was dying, although I explained he had swallowed fine prior to coming in for pneumonia and has always been a small petite guy his entire life. Dr. Cortez did NOT hear me at all.

My grandfather passed the swallow test and did great. And when Dr. Cortez came into my grandfather’s room the next morning to tell us that my grandfather passed, he said, “He did great, but let’s see if he actually eats!” which I felt was extremely cynical and negative. Dr. Cortez’s attitude and lack of empathy causes families to have to endure even more emotional distress and negativity when they are already facing a really traumatic time having a loved one in the hospital.

This was after my grandfather had already eaten two meals at the hospital which Dr. Cortez could have checked on prior to making his assumption about if my grandfather eats. He then proceeded to say that if my grandfather continues to eat, he does not need hospice care, which he is eating and is doing well at his new nursing home.

This entire ordeal was rather infuriating to have gone through and we felt it could have been completely avoided had Dr. Cortez taken the time to wait for the results and gotten the proper information or at least had better emotional awareness because these are actual people’s lives, family members, not just numbers or diagnosis— actual people. And especially considering he works in a very sensitive field. Just because most cases of palliative care turn out to be end-of-life, doesn’t mean each individual patient shouldn’t be looked at on a case-by-case basis as a person but with assumptions.

His bed-side manner was also horrible. I was sitting in my grandfather’s hospital room while Dr. Cortez was at the nurses station ranting about another family to the staff. He literally said, “It’s unfortunate that family just can’t come to terms with reality.” It’s not appropriate at all to judge how a family or anyone handles a traumatic experience especially one so emotionally sensitive as end-of-life, and I feel it’s even less appropriate to be ranting about other patients and families in a space where others can hear you. It’s extremely unprofessional and something should be done about this type of unprofessional behavior.

Again just DON’T BRING YOUR...