St. Mary's Hospital Hospital
Surgery is over, and the stay in the hospital was abbreviated. I nearly lost patience a few times having to repeat myself so many times. SMMC is great as long as you have no special needs for medications, and as long as you have patience with student nurses. Prior to surgery, I contacted the hospital to let them know I have an allergy to the most-used painkillers, and to make certain they had something I could take. I was assured it would be on my chart, but I also made sure my husband was watching out for everything. After the IV was removed, the first pain medication they brought was - you guessed it - soemthing I was allergic to!! It took a full day to get that taken care of - no thanks to the visiting surgeon (NOT Dr. Lenz). I was relieved to be going home on Sunday for more than one reason! Sorry, SMMC. You need to give much more personalized attention to your patients! Not all of us are cookie-cutter people!
The SMDC Bariatric Program is awesome. They do a complete job of preparing you for the surgery and possibilities, and what is expected of you before and after surgery, that I went into this with my eyes wide open and a great attitude. I had lost over 40 pounds pre-operatively, exercised and went into my surgery as healthy and prepared as possible. I think this contributed to my relatively complication-free surgery and recovery. But my positive attitude, willingness to follow the protocol, and lack of complications were reflected in the positive, compassionate and helpful attitudes of the nursing staff. My caregivers were wonderful and so encouraging! And of course my surgeon, Dr Jon Krook is DR MIRACLE and he ROCKS!
VERY happy with surgeon and his nursing staff, but general nursing poor. They did not seem to know what the proceedures for dealing with RNY patients were. Also not very clean--poor handwashing techniques and rooms not well cleaned--dirty laundry on floors in shared bathrooms for days, no one was gloved on nursing staff.