El Camino Hospital Hospital

I have only had one visit with Dr. Wetter, but I must say I was very impressed with him right from the start. I had read many wonderful things about him on the internet and was pleased to find out for myself that they were all true. When he walked into the room my first thought was "He sure looks young". (I'm still not use to having Dr's younger than myself...but now that I'm 50 I guess that's kind of inevitable!) Dr. Wetter was very informative and took the time to answer all my questions. It was nice to talk with a Dr. who was so understanding. My former internist always told me just to cut back on food intake and exercise by pushing myself away from the table!
Dr. Wetter's office staff were very nice. No one got that shocked look on their face when I stepped on the scale! Terry was very helpful with the insurance and explained to me how long it might take to get approval. Aftercare seems to be a big part of Dr. Wetter's program. He has a support group with Anne Timberlake(nurse) once a month. Anne is extreamly helpful and prompt about answering any questions I have e-mailed to her. I am looking forward to attending her post-op sessions.
I was impressed not only with Dr. Wetter's surgical competence, but also his bedside manner. I have a real good feeling for what I am about to do and am thankful I found Dr. Wetter.

This man changed my life, I will be forever be in his debt.He is kind, sincere, and a nice dry sence of humor.He spent over 71/2 hrs working on me trying to make a lap proceedure work for me, but had to eventually open me up for I was leaking at stomach/intestine conection and needed to see what was going on, he also took gall bladder in this procedure too.that was nearly twice the amount of time usually taken for this proceedure and I feel he really tried to make the lap work for me.He then had another surgery after me so that was another 3-4 hrs bent over one of us in a day.His bedside manner is exceptional and listened to me with care and met all my needs.
Dr. Legha is a righteous dude and I would recomend him to anyone seeking this proceedure.
The Frank

I have not met him but I have heard good things about him. The fact that he does Lap's makes me very happy. It is important to remember that we are looking for a good "knife" not a clown, so sense of humor is not critical. I have an appointment to meet with him on May 22. I will update then.
May 23, 2001 - I met with Dr. Legha yesterday and was EXTREMELY impressed. He is very serious but he knows his stuff and he gave me a sense of security. It looks like my surgery will be late July early August. I have the utmost confidence that Dr. Legha will do an excellent job.

July 25, 2001 - I had my surgury on July 5 and I am VERY HAPPy with my results. Dr. Legha is an excellent surgeon! My surgery was simple and to the point just like Dr. Legha. I highly recommend him. Thank you Dr. Legha.

I found Dr. Wetter on the Internet! I really did quite a bit of research. Money/time were not issues for me, but expertise in doing the lapraoscip surgery, a kind bedside manner and giving adequate pain med's were critical to me. I spent countless hours reading about different surgeons, and Dr. Wetter beat them alllll out by a huge percentage.

Consistently, everyone spoke very highly of his expertise AND beside manner.

I met Dr. Wetter 1x. He was extremely curteous, polite and professional. I've dealt with quite a few doctors in my life. Although quite a few people have posted that they found Dr. Wetter direct, straightforward, non-nonsesne and somewhat abrupt...I didn't. I found him informative, open and caring!

His office staff was kind, worked on and got me an almost immediate approval (I love Terry)and scheduled date.

Dr. Wetter informed me about the risks, the after-care and the impact the surgery would have on my life.

Is there a rating higher than excellent?? I can't say enough about Dr. Wetter, and his staff.

And.......yes I would reccomend him.

By-the-way....My surgery is one week from today! July 30th!

Love, Alexandra


Follow Up Remarks:

Pre-Op

My husband and I met with Dr. Wetter for my pre-op appt. He was soooo polite, answered my husbands questions, and allayed some of my fears. Evidently, he has a zero fatality rate, and that is comforting.

2 more days to go...Gosh I'm scared.

Post Op

What a difference a week can make.

I'm home now. My opinion of Dr. Wetter has somewhat changed. He was brisk in the hospital. I was in a lot of pain for the 1st 2 days, and on a scale of 1-10, on a level of 10+ the 1st 2 days, and 7-8, the rest of the week. Alllllll he cared about was walking! Walk! Walk! Walk! He adequately controled the pain, was more than willing to keep you comfortable, but alllll that mttered was walking. On day 2, I had walked 4 times down the lenght of the hall, and the nurses only wrote down 1x, and said I only walked out of my door. He was very irrited about this.

I had a fever of 100.1 to 101.5 all week. When I was advanced to level 2, I became ill when I ate the cereal of soup.

When I brought all of this up, his answer was....walk! Over and over. By day 5, I'd had enough.

The nurse who runs the program, was just a tad patronizing. When I voiced my concerns to her, her eyes just glazed over ( a la "Stepford Wife's" ) and told me it was my responsibility to walk...! :O

And then a small light was going on....I asked her what happnes if anyones gets pneumonia...ill,...vomits....wahtever, then she remarked "We have a wonderful track record here, and typically it is because the patient wasn't following our program correctly."

And all the little comments I heard throughout the week gelled...."we're having our 100th by-pass surgery party"...."Dr. Wetter has a perfect record"...."Our patients do soooo well, that they leave in 3-4 days"...."This surgery has put the hospital on the map"....

And then it occutred to me. If someone did get sick, whateverrr.....

this enourmous armour could act as a sheild for the doctor and the hsopital.

Why if you got pneumonia, or couldn't handle food, or your pain was not typical, or you vomited to much....it would never be anyone's fault but your own.

When I left, my fever was still 101. something...and I had aquired Thrush in my mouth. I was still having quite a bit of pain, and feeling "tight" in my chest.

It didn't matter.

I'm home now. My fever is 101.8, and I could not hold down my teensy dinner of cereal or applesauce. I've been taking sips of ice tea and juice...but my mouth is burning so that's not helping.

I left the hospital feeling very angry and not feeling taken care of.

I just need to remind everyone, that this is my opinion, and other people that have had the surgery don't share my experience.

Dr. Wetter is an excellent surgeon. I'm alive, and from what many nurses said my sticthes looked great.

My biggest fear was not surviving tyhe surgery, and I did.

At no time did I question Dr. Wetter's skills as a surgeion, and I would only reccomend him for this surgery.

However, I would have my own doctor invoved in Post Op Care.

I have concerns that the reputation of the hsopital and the doctor's has become more important that the care of the patient.

At least is was in my case.

I was so nervous before my consult visti but once I met with Dr. Wetter - a complete feeling of calmness came over me. My imprssion of him didnt change - other than it got better.

He explained the entire procedure to me on more than 1 occasion. He told me about his website that he has & about the support group that hospital has for its patients. He emphasized that once the surgery is over the importance of eating right & exercising. The biggest struggle for me will be the eating right - the exercise I can deal with!

I have had surgeries before - so we didnt go over to much of the risks of surgey but he did tell me the risks with this particular surgery.

The only thing was that I didnt see him ( or least dont remember seeing him on the day of my surgey. It was on a friday - so I saw his partner over the weekend!

Dr. Foster was extremely nice. Takes a lot of time to explain everything and just makes you feel very comfortable.
Office staff is really nice too. Lorna who scheduled my first appointment was wonderful. Got me in to see Dr. Foster within a week and a half from first call.
Surgery scheduled tomorrow July 16th. I will update after that.

I met with Dr. Wetter on June 19th. I really liked him. He was very open and seemd to be honest about possible complications, especially, since I'm 50. I would recommend him. The only disappointment is that he's booked so far out. Surgery could be Oct/Nov/Dec. I guess it depends upon the insurance approval.

When I went in to see Dr. Cooper here in Chico, he was very upfront and straight forward. He was a little older than I thought he'd be for some reason... His office is quite outdated, but the staff is nice. I was dissapointed because they mailed me a packet of information about 2 months before my appt, basically at the consultation (that cost me $50 cash) he read the booklet to me... I had already read it about 3 times by then... and I was practically finishing his sentences for him because I already knew what he was going to say. I have decided to check out a few surgeons in the bay area because I am interested in laparoscopic surgery, and Cooper only does open. Dr. Wetter in Burlingame seems to be a good one to research, so I'm going to check him out, and make an appt. for a consultation.

She was very nice.
Her staff is very caring and just as nice.
The first visit she was about 1.5 hours late.
She is a very serious person.
No aftercare program that I know of.

My first inpression of Dr. Foster was that she is very caring and patient she answers all your questions and is very informative. Her nurse Michelle is very nice and also caring and is is very supportive and guides you along the way. Dr. Foster does make you lose weight before the surgery, I didn't think I could do it but I have and its been hard but I know it is for the best.

Dr. Foster see you 2 weeks after surgery and I think 6 weeks after surgery. One of my best friends had surgery by Dr. Foster 5-23-01 and Dr. Foster spent a great deal of time with her after surgery and we can't say enough about both Dr. Foster and MIchelle