Steer clear of this doc

Here is my story with Dr. Gagner. I emailed Dr. Gagner about a self pay revision around the 1st of Dec 2011. He asked for my phone number and called me at work the next morning. He said he could do my revision for $20,000. He said he could do it laproscopically and take out my gallbladder (I have stones) as well. He had his nurse Veronique contact me via email back and forth after that. For the last two weeks of December I jumped through all kinds of hoops! Dr. Gagner said if I would have the funds ($20,000) wired to him by Dec. 29th, he would schedule me for Jan 4th surgery. I paid for expedited shipping to get my esophageal he ordered on disc sent to him. I also had EKG, labs, barium x-ray and several other requests done just so I could have the surgery on January 4th. On Friday, Dec. 30th around noon, he emailed me and postponed my surgery. He said his anesthesiologist was still on vacation. He was teaching in Hawaii for the next 3 weeks and had other obligations after that. The next surgery date he gave me was Feb. 15th, 2012. Ok, I cancel the hotel room, change my Sprint account back to non international roaming, changed my airline tickets to Feb 15th, which leaves a United Airlines credit of $400 that I have a year to use, change EVERYTHING at work to prepare for a later surgery date and postpone EMR till a later date. Practically the mental anguish was so much that I cried for several days. He kept my $20,000 waiting for 2/15/12 surgery date. I rescheduled everything and once again had all of my ducks in a row! Wednesday, February 8th, one week before surgery, he did it again!!! Sent me the ever-so compassionate email that he was going to have to cancel again. This time he offered to refund my money! I left work that day crying so hard because I just could not believe he would do me that way again! I asked him to call me but he would not. He gave me the same song and dance about not being able to get an anesthesiologist from McGill University to perform the surgery. He said it would be about two months before he could get the administration issues resolved. I am now looking into other options for the DS surgery. I wanted to warn everyone about him. I did get $20,000 back on Friday (thank God) but now I have a $1233 United Airlines credit when I really need the money instead. My advise to you is stay clear of this one or you'll be in for a lot of heartache. Word is he's skipped out all together!

Have you checked with Keshishian, in CA? He seems to be the revision guy right now.

WTH!!!  Gagner certainly DOES NOT take root anywhere. Word years ago was that he was one of the best surgeons but his stability issues seems to be getting worse and worse.

I am sorry that you have been through so much mental anguish.  Wonder if you can make some sort of complaint about him.  It sucks!  I had an "out of town" doc when I was initially banded - I could have died when he abandoned his NYC patients - REALLY!  Dr. Roslin saved me - he's the man!!

Good luck hun!