Mayo Clinic Hospital, Methodist Campus — Local services in Rochester

I have a rare form of cancer that has had limited progression because of too low a dose of a targeted therapy drug. My local Mayo health system clinic has referred me to the main Mayo Clinic in Rochester because the main Mayo Clinic does not allow the health system clinics to do certain testing such as PET scans. I am trying to schedule a follow-up PET scan and blood work and consultation which should not be hard, should it? You cannot believe how difficult this has been for Mayo's scheduling. Not only I, but also my family, has had this same problem with Mayo's admin work. It is abysmal. Not only that, but the scheduling people do not seem to understand how hard it is to fast for testing until noon in a day. Nor do they comprehend that it is winter in Minnesota and elderly people cannot drive in the dark, and that weather determines a lot of what scheduling is necessary. If I had any other choice other than seeing Mayo for my cancer, believe me, I would go there. The doctors are great, but the support personnel and admin systems are ridiculously bad, inadequate, and stupid beyond belief.

To continue with my story, I am trying to get a reasonable accommodation to quietly read during my PET scans. Other scan providers allow reading and TV watching. Mayo seems to think my request will ruin my scan. I guess it has been forgotten that I am paying for this scan and that a less than perfect scan is on me. We'll see if I will be accommodated. The main problem here, as I see it, is that Mayo fails to live up to its mission statement that the NEEDS OF THE PATIENT COME FIRST. In my dealings with radiology, the patient is just a lab animal with no patient rights to say no or ask for anything other than the rigid procedures.

I will continue this story. But, any Mayo patient who needs any kind of accommodation from this clinic will face difficulties.

So the story continues:

Since January 2019, my spouse has been trying to schedule his 6-month eye checkup in opthamology. First, in January he was told he would be scheduled in a couple of days. Nothing. After a month he then called and was told he could not get an appointment for another 3 months--now it would be 2 months past the time he was told to return. Finally after 3 tries and much angst, he got his appointment with profuse apologies on the part of the scheduling idiots. These scheduling people actually suggested (without knowing what his health condition was) that he should go to the local Mayo health system hospital. Of course, that hospital does not have the expertise nor equipment to do what my spouse needs done. My spouse has been going to Mayo for a decade because of his opthamology needs. Mayo's administration is broken and stupid...

I had a pretty good experience here. I came in with a serious migraine headache, and nausea. Because of this, they did a head CT scan and meanwhile gave me pain medication. When I didn't respond to the one medicine/ it didn't help, they gave me another via IV. They also gave me fluids... still, this wasn't enough. They checked my blood and found out that I was cortisol deficient, and therefore (I assume) their thinking was that any inflammation could not be brought down due to my "inflammation switch" being completely turned off. (I have Addison's disease.) Anyways, they promptly treated me not only with pain meds, but with strong anti-inflammatory steroids, and I went from a pain level of 10 for 7 hours and wanting to die, to about a level 3 before they sent me home. The next day, my doctor at Mayo called with the test results regarding my cortisol, and he assigned me to meet with an endocrinologist to find out the etiology of why I have so much adrenal fatigue. He told me that without cortisol, my organs and muscles would not be able to function properly, and gave me a daily dose of replacement cortisol for my body to begin to rebuild itself. I have been fatigued for 2 years, and previous to these visits... no other doctors realized that I had hormonal...

Sorry patients needs don't come first and when I was a patient there the nurses were complete snots towards me stating they didn't have enough staff to be caring for me every time I needed someone to come to my room. I had a left broken pelvic bone and a right broken pelvic bone, shattered femur, broken sternum, about a fozen broken ribs and was not allowed to leave bed and was told to call anytime I needed something. They had to put a rod in my left femur and put 2 rods in my hips. They got the length wrong on the rod for my femur and had to fo a 2nd surgery to fix that 5 days later. Turns out they were still wrong with the length because now I walk unevenly. A different seg of doctors say that my left leg is 2cm shorter than my right. Now I have permanent damage done and no way to repair it. The doctors stated I should heal up just fine and that was feb of 2022 and I have all sorts of issues now. I dont understand how mayo can be number 1 in the world. I have been begging them to send me to a clinic where I can get my pain managed and all they have done is torture me. Mayo will never make it right and now I know next time...