My Experience
My Dr is Dr Blackstone. My surgery was at Scottsdale Healthcare. The 5th floor is dedicated to Bariatric surgery. I've read so many horror stories that I want everyone to know these folks have this all down to a science. They are there for you, and you period. They are all genuinely concerned for your health and well being. They don't want you in pain and take the task of your surgery as a partnership between you and them. Rooms are set up for larger patients. Most if not all are single rooms. I wanted for nothing. They knew before I did what I may want or need. After surgery I was up walking within 3 hrs. I learned to do this from a hernia surgery that the longer you sit after surgery the stiffer you get. I got up to 8 laps around the nurses station by 9:00 that night, Surgery was at 9:00 AM. Any question I had was answered.
I was as most people are nervous about the surgery and what pain would be involved. Hey I did and do have pain. But I understand why I have it and know what to do to help it due to the education I received. I'm not touting my abilities to recover, because in all honesty I truly believe I could not have recpvered as well anywhere else. I am now 3 days post op. I'm at home and doing as well as expected. Honestly, much better than I could have ever dreamed of.
What I'm trying to express here is if you are considering bariatric surgery, you need to do as much research as you can. I went to Dr. Blackstone's education seminar in July. I made my decision on my surgeon less than two weeks after that. No one in AZ is this dedicated to helping bariatric patients, not only as a surgeon, but as an activist. Some of you may know, but Dr. Blackstone is working to try to get rid of the 6 month diet portion carried by most insurace agents. So now you know there is someone in AZ that will care about you if you decide on this surgery.
on 12/21/09 4:53 pm, edited 12/21/09 5:11 pm
Anyone considering the surgeon she is now recommending (Dr. Schlesinger) should read this recent post by a patient named Nancy. He actually DID DO her surgery. Her post and the entire thread were both deleted (and not by her). Luckily, I cut & pasted it off of OH while it was still on - here it is, in its entirety - I highlighted the pertinent passages in bold red:
Post Date: 12/12/09 8:07 am
MWG, I am "Poster X". My name is Nancy, and while I sincerely appreciate your protecting my privacy, I have nothing to hide.
I have some things I agree wholeheartedly with you on and othere I do not.
To begin... When I went to my very first Dr. S. support meeting, I met Joyce and she was very kind to me. "I asked her" to introduce me to Dr. S. after the meeting, which she did. "I mentioned to her" that my intentions were to have a tummy tuck after the weight loss, something I had always wanted since the birth of my two children. We discussed it no further.
He came across a "extremely caring and supportive", that was the lie, all a show to get patients. From my very first official appt with him, which was to be approx. an hour. to discuss all the aspects and complications of having an ERNY, considering I had had TWO previous RNY's in the past 20+ years and all the scar tissue in my abdomen from many previous other surgeries.
This VITAL appt lasted 15 minutes because he had to go!
The next time i saw him was the morning of surgery, as he was running an hour late due to surgical complications of the patient before me. He was hurried , rushed ( time is money) and rude.
In fact the only time he was not rude and short with me was that first support meeting before i even had applied for insurance coverage. Boy was I snowed.
My pre-op bloodwork never found it's way to Tempe St. Lukes from Dr. S's office, in advance of my surgery, so a rookie lab tech came in to pre-op to draw blood at the last minute. The pre op nurse could not find a vein for the IV after several painful trys, and finally said to me " let's put this in "Druggie style" and comented to the anesthesiologist , just standing there, " I'm not catching it from him for this one". Guess who HIM is?
Later that night, after surgery, the IV burst the vein in my arm and my upper arm swelled to twice it's size, no one on staff noticed! or ever checked it? About 2am, they finally found 4 different people from other hospital depts to try to put in another IV, i never recieve the second drip bag of antibiotics because of the blown IV. it was trown on the floor as waste. My 31 year old daughter was with me and witnessed everything. Tempe St. Luke's is an old and dirty hospital.
This was during September of this year and signs were posted all over "No children under 12 on patient floors" due to the H1N1 virus, yet the next morning i was almost run down in the patient floor hallway by little kids going in to see a family member, small children.
Dr. S. discharged me the next morning after surgery, time to make room for another paying customer, within 1 week I had infection in my wound drain and three places along the incision, I called him and he blew me off , in fact was furious I had bothered him on the Jewish High holidays, Just a note , I am Jewish as well.
I was taken to Banner Baywood ER that night, put on antibiotics and pain meds. I went in to see him within a couple days and he looked at my infection sites and said "Quote: If you think that is infected, you need a Psychiatrist" and sent me away again.
Within a couple days I was in Cigna Urgent care, with agonizing pain from these infections and was then admited to Banner Wound Clinic for treatment. it took a month and a half, but Banner finally got the wounds to close. I thought the nightmare was over. I was wrong.
A month goes by and suddenly there are two bulging abcesses from under the drain area and the incision line. I was terrified. Banner ordered more antibiotics and a CT which showed pockets of fluid beneath the skin trapped there, The Specialist said I needed surgery to open them up, clean out and reclose. They put me on home health nursing care every two days to repack the open wounds. I made an appt with Dr. S., he could not see me for two weeks , he needed more time off I guess, when I did see him, he said I did not need surgery, was overreacting and that if I had taken better care of my nutrition I would have healed by now. In other words, this was my fault.
Now more than three months into this nightmare, I am still terribly sick, need to find a new surgeon to correct Dr. S.'s sloppy work AND SLOPPIER ATTITUDE.
I would not have him touch me again ever, He is the most self centered egotistical man I have ever met. He is the "bait and switch guy", all sweet up front but G-d help you if anything goes wrong because he WILL NOT take responsiblity for it and won't take your calls.
Now as far as my own responsiblitity, I knew my best result would be a RNY to DS out of state by an EXPERIENCED DS REVISION SURGEON, but it would not have been covered by my insurance and I am not rich by any means. So I took a caculated risk and lost, that's on me. Not Joyce, not Jenn.
Jen has always been extremely kind and helpful to me, I don't understand why she works for such a monster. She is very capable and could do so much better.
Joyce has alway been there for me to answer legitimate questions along the way with no push for any plastics, she knows i would never even consider risking my life again with any elective surgery and she understands that and is still my friend.
The comment you referenced to was a "joke" between friends. nothing more , no push for her Boss, just a joke to try to cheer me up.
In closing, I am seriously considering filing a complaint with the AZ Medical Board for failure to treat the infections, TWICE. Infection can occur with any surgery, however to deny it exists and treat it promply is negligent. Fortunately I advocated for myself through my PCP to get desperately need care, if i has just listened to Dr. S. I might not be here today. He would do ANYTHING to avoid having records of complications because that would prohibit him from getting a "Center of Excellence" rating to treat medicare patients ( more money) .
Well that is my story, told as honestly as I can. Take or leave any thing from it you wish. I can tell you that if I had know there were medical complaints against him from other states before I chose my surgeon, it would have been a different story.
Compassion goes along way, Dr. S. has NONE.
Here is another post by a recent patient named "Lizzie" *****cently had her Schlesinger surgery reversed at the Mayo Clinic after having become very sick - again, I cut and pasted:
Post Date: 12/7/09 8:19 am
To all who are wondering: I had my surgery on Wed (today is Mon) and I got home Sat p.m. from Mayo. Yes, the surgeons did a great job...they really know all about Bariatric Surgery! They said that Schlesinger left my common channel a mere 50 cm...something I NEVER knew--because it's not mentioned in my op rpt. Mayo doctors refer to this short of a CC as a "Very, Very Long Limb RNY" (Incidentally, created BY a Mayo doctor). There was no need for someone like me (who weighed at the time, only 185 lbs) to have such a drastic procedure. In all honesty, I did not know of the extreme shortness of this procedure that was done to me. Mayo reversed it to 200 cm, which is now a more appropriate and realistic length, to their surgical techniques; this procedure being called a "Very Long Limb RNY". My surgeon said that NOW my body can properly utilize its pancreatic digestive enzymes, which was not possible for the past year, due to the way that surgery left me. (Prior to going to Mayo, I was faced with having a port put into my chest for 3x/wkly nutritional feedings and pancreatic enzymes. Fortunately, I saw doctors who KNOW what they are dealing with! My previous blood work (prior to the original ERNY) did not show ANY hemolytic anemia. This is something that was acquired since that operation. Mayo docs do not know if it will be able to be reversed. I have had iron infusions and EPO, which have done nothing to raise my blood counts. My husband is livid... I am left with these nutritional deficiencies that will take me months, or perhaps years, to recuperate from and still cannot work. My husband wants compensation for the physical, mental, and now financial stress this has put on my/our live(s). Will this help? I don't know, because 50 cm is what Dr. S does (I now know from my conversations w/other Dr. S patients--esp those with complications from this surgery). I did not acquire this situation because I did not follow the diet protocol...rather, I was told by my surgeon (last year) that I was non-compliant. I am NOT stupid. I was told by some on the OH site to just 'stick with it and see how it goes', but that is utterly ridiculous, when one's life is in the balance. I think that OH is a good resource for those who are looking for and receiving good support. But I am tired of reading all the hype about a surgeon who is just a man... his surgery did me no great service in the long-run. I deactivated my profile, etc. I will deal with my own health issues and get other support elsewhere. Liz
These two are not the only patients who have had this experience. Most crawl into a hole licking their wounds. A few have posted their stories on OH. Here is a link to another patient's profile on here - note that he also went to Mayo to clean up surgical complications that Schlesinger ignored until they became life threatening:
www.obesityhelp.com/member/tjwood/
This same doctor also had patients posting wonderful reviews of him on OH last year, which continued until they were exposed as being either employees or "office advocates". And, he was confusing prospective revision patients about how a revision to the ERNY would be "the same" as a revision to the DS (which he did NOT and still DOES NOT do as a revision and only has limited experience performing as a "virgin" surgery). Some of his patients even thought he gave them the DS and posted about it - that's how confused they were!
No doctor is perfect, but some are more deceptive than others. Dr. Schlesinger has a recent history of confusing patients into doing whatever surgery HE thinks they should have. Just from what I have read, I wouldn't be surprised if his "care" is based on how much profit he makes from talking a patient into one surgical approach vs. the other. Anyone considering WLS should do their own research and not listen to what ANY patient says (pro or con) about ANY doctor.
HAHAHA!
BUSTED by Stacysmom!
Schlesinger attends support groups for the same reason as Joyce did, to recruit newbies. Often times newbies attend support groups to learn about surgery types and to pick a doctor.
Schlesinger needs people like Joyce (what she admitted that she did previously) and you to promote him on support boards because his rep is so bad the only way he can get new business is to have people out there with severe complications being paid to push his name. Some people really will do anything for a buck as proven on these boards.
Looks like he's getting fake testimonials from folks as well. The testimonial section is for your surgeon, Schlesinger is not your surgeon. He's your follow up doctor since your actual surgeon can't do your follow up.
FAKE FAKE FAKE. More Schlesinger tactics.
I take it business is bad?
Reggie
You have to admit, your post is deceptive. You did make it sound as though he did your surgery.
It's not a matter of hating, it's a matter of honesty.
Rebecca
Day of surgery - 252.5 Highest weight - 269 Goal weight - 134, reached!!
Kim Gyurina, OH Staff · 0 replies · 389 views
