Last week’s apparently controversial poll asked whether you thought newborns were cute or ugly. While the majority sided with “cute”, it was a tight race with “cute” only winning by two. I guess my poll question wasn’t as awful as some believed being that so many people believe newborns aren’t all that cute.
This week’s poll comes after our two stays in the hospital over the last week. My wife and newborn daughter were at United for ~65 hours when she was born and we were later admitted to the NICU at Ridges beginning Monday and stayed through Thursday because my daughter was severely dehydrated. A stressful and miserable time for sure but these difficult times were made more stressful by the way hospital staff seemed put off by questions about the care provided and how they would go about it.
As someone with a brain and with an interest in having the members of my family receive appropriate care, I ask questions–lots of them. I also expect my family members to receive a level of care which should be consistent with that of all other human beings. Unfortunately, based on my experience (and my experience when The Rooster was born), it would appear that hospital staffers forget that they are not working on in animate objects and are instead dealing with people who are intelligent beings with feelings.
Some examples:
- My wife made a choice with her OB months ago to do a natural birth and not a C-section. Less than an hour before she actually gave birth (without any complications at all) another OB who was associated with my wife’s chosen clinic but was not her doctor came in to tell her that she absolutely would have a C-section or she would have an over 20% chance of being incontinent. After berating my wife for more than 10 minutes, I intervened when I noticed she was becoming upset. The doctor, whose bedside manner was as advanced as that of a wild boar, seemed almost perturbed that I would dare note that she should not be pressuring my wife into this decision and I didn’t care for it. We ended up opting for a completely different doctors to do the delivery who was soft, sweet, and apparently amazing at her job (which consisted almost entirely of standing with her arms crossed and saying “push” every 4 minutes) because there were no complications.
A feeding tube was inserted into my daughter without our consent. It’s not as if an hour’s delay would have led to her death and it’s not like we weren’t in the hospital. Instead of coming to consult with us prior to the procedure, they just intubated her first and told us questions later. When we told them that we expected they would communicate with us fully at all times and prior to any medical procedure which was not routine and was not necessary to keep her alive in the very short time (imminent death) we received what I like to call the “stink eye roll”.
There are many other examples including barriers to having my wife be fed because “that’s the way the computer system works and it isn’t my problem,” and, “I should have taken a before and after photo of that,” which would have included sensitive body parts. Many of these are too numerous to mention but fit the models noted above. When I feel that medical staffers are grasping at straws about the procedures they plan or the potential for complications may be greater than potential benefits, I speak up and I do not expect the “stink eye roll” or a lot of confused looks.
Being that we have only spent a short time in the hospital for these two births, I wonder if anyone else has a larger sample of experiences to counter or add to the negative experiences we have had with the medical professionals we dealt with. Do you think many doctors lack bedside manner and treat their patients like inanimate objects? Do you feel that you are not communicated to clearly and effectively and instead left to float in some unknowing void? Have you pushed back on medical staff members and met resistance when you did as if they were saying, “how dare someone question our knowledge even if we are not all that sure of it ourselves?”
Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on and vote on the side bar and then feel free to check out our expired polls in the archive or read through the previous posts about polls here.
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June 24th, 2012 at 10:07 am
I don’t have any knowledge of those procedures, but hearing this makes me very very glad I’m not delivering at United. (Either Ridges or Southdale for me).
I’ve only ever been “in” the hospital for an out-patient surgery, and only twice, but had no complaints about my care. One at Methodist, which I was so drugged for I don’t remember and one at Fairview Southdale where I had excellent care including them allowing my husband to come back to recovery before they normally allow spouses in due to the nature of my procedure. No complaints.
June 24th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Births are the most difficult things for a hospital staff because it’s not an operation… thus, they cannot control the outcome (and thus the insurance companies involved cannot gauge risk). That’s why there are so many C-sections – the complications are well-known and everything can be controlled.
Of course, it’s been shown again and again that the complications for a C-section are much worse for mother and child in the long run than a vaginal birth… but that’s not the insurance company’s problem!
They don’t have these problems in Europe, because a C-section is used there for EMERGENCIES, which is what the procedure is for… not so the overworked OB can get to the next patient. In Europe, they just let births happen, like they’re supposed to. How did we ever survive as a species if childbirth was as difficult as the US medical system seems to think it is? How did anyone have a baby before there were hospitals?
June 24th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
In general, I think hospital care should be much better, especially with births. Our nation’s C-section rate is absolutely outrageous. Birth is treated as a medical event with automatic intervention rather than a natural event in which intervention only occurs if necessary.
For us specifically, we were pretty happy with our experiences. Our first experience was with twins and could have gone a bit better, but we didn’t get the hospital we really wanted because the one we wanted didn’t want to take twins at the time. The last time around we got the one we wanted and loved it. It’s the oldest hospital in the state and doesn’t have all of the frills of some of the others, but it’s a few blocks down from Children’s Hospital if something goes wrong and the staff was fantastic all across the board. They bent rules for us on a few occasions regarding food delivery, grabbing a drink from the employee fridge late at night, etc.
I may feel much differently if we’d gone somewhere else, but I felt like we got pretty lucky. I’ve heard a number of other experiences that didn’t go nearly as well.
June 24th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
dm, go to Southdale rather than Ridges….REALLY.
Bill, I think that any medical professional should quake in their shoes at the prospect of dealing with you….ha.
This column addresses a really complex topic. There are a number of huge things wrong with our medical system; that said, there are great people and not-so-great people in every profession, including this one.
The power that the insurance companies hold over our medical system, both directly and indirectly, is hugely wrong. Gargantuan pharma companies encourage the mass pumping of drugs into all of us and ensure that this happens by using their economical influence. Our medical system has little to no relationship with the promotion of health; for one, they tie the hands of the doctors by allowing mostly drugs and surgery as the main “health” options, and two, people who focus on taking care of their health through prevention don’t bring in the big dollars and thus this type of behavior is not encouraged.
The medical business has become a driving force in our economy, which just seems so wrong on many levels.
Regarding the treatment of individuals and Bill and Kim’s experiences, my mother just spent three weeks having major surgery and rehab in two different facilities, and my opinion of how she/we were treated is only “meh”. For one thing, she was strictly not allowed to walk to her bathroom on her own and was told to buzz when she needed to go, yet she would buzz and no one would come for half an hour. She is older and cannot hold it that long, so she would wait as long as she could and then just walk without help. Then she would be chastised. One nurse reportedly told her to just wet the bed and lay in it. Granted, she can be rather unpleasant and I probably would have been tempted to tell her the same thing, but these circumstances are still not acceptable.
My take is that despite the huge dollars being generated through healthcare in this country, most facilities are understaffed and that staff is undertrained.
Additionally, the hospital did a very poor job of communicating with us on my mother’s condition and treatment. Over a weeks time we only managed to snag the attention of one of her doctors twice; we would repeatedly ask about speaking with a doctor and were told that no one ever knew when a (random) doctor was coming by. We could have raised a stink, but as she seemed to be doing pretty well we decided to choose our battles.
Supposedly the US has the priciest healthcare system with the poorest results of all the developed countries.
June 24th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Sandy, have you given birth at either of those hospitals recently? Ridges birthplace gets more positive reviews from new mothers than Southdale does. So I’d be curious to hear your reasons. (if I sound sarcastic, I’m not being sarcastic, I’m honestly curious)
June 24th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
dm,
I wouldn’t take Ridges over United any day based on our experience staying on the motherhood floor and our interaction with the NICU staff.
June 24th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. I’m extremely lucky in that I have yet to spend a single day in a hospital bed, at least since I was born. I’ve been at the Fairview Ridges ER once for myself (in 1985 for a cut hand) and twice in the early 90′s with my kids. My wife spent 6 days over 2 births at The Ridges back in 89 and 90. No issues.
So based on that, I don’t see an issue with the Ridges, but that was a long time ago. I’m sorry to hear of the problems you experienced Bill. Note I’ve heard from family members that have had many issues with Doctors, and Doctor Offices, and hospitals in general. So it isn’t a particular shock for me, but I’m am very disappointed that the hospital allows such behavior to occur.
It is important that medical service professionals do not loose site of the fact that while they, as professionals, may have been doing the same thing for years, answering the same questions for years, and dealing with the same attitudes for years, each and every interaction they have with a patient is probably the patients first exposure to what is happening.
This is especially important in the medical field as the people experiencing the event, are likely experiencing fear, concern, and overall stress. These people need compassion, caring, and professionalism, not smarmy comments or eye rolling. If what Bill is stating happened to me, I’d be talking to someone at the hospital to ensure they are aware of what is passing for care at their facility and that it is woefully inadequate. If they pulled more B.S. with me I’d probably lodge a complaint with the State Board of Medical Practice.
June 24th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Bill, what is disturbing is that your wife and you had to put up with this “Obgyn on call”. If your wife was planning on a natural child birth then a total stranger, a doctor”?” berated her concerning her method of delivery?……………. The apparent truth is that this “dr?” didn’t give a damn!!! That “dr?” was only interested in “getting in and getting out” and making a fast buck. Her irresponsible actions created a chain of experiences that turned out to be completely negative. I am so sorry that both of you had to endure this “Obgyn” regarding Cassidy’s delivery……….BUT, Cassidy is the most beautiful gem that I have seen in a long time. Thank you two for sharing with us your bundle of joy.
June 24th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
I wrote out a longish response, but accidentally hit the “subscribe” button rather than the “submit commit one.” My comment vanished.
I won’t repeat it all, but will say that my immediate and extended family have used the Fairview system in various capacities. Generally we’ve been pleased by the responsiveness of the staff. The one complaint is that it felt like nobody was “in charge” when my father-in-law was in Ridges earlier this year. I later spoke with his primary physician (someone I’ve had some good interactions with), who said that it used to be that a PCP was in charge of his/her patients when they went to the hospital, but now that’s no longer the case. I believe we did talk with a “hospitalist,” but as I said, it felt to us all that nobody “owned” my father-in-law’s care.
June 24th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
dm, there was a recent report that rated Ridges pretty low compared to Southdale. This supports my experiences/impressions from dealing with both places over a period of about 25 years.
You will likely get good enough care at either place, and Ridges would certainly be more convenient. I do believe that they are always trying harder there, as well. Southdale just has a lot more going for it, IMO.
I hope things go easily for you! This is an exciting time. When are you due?
June 24th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I’m a little surprised that nobody here has mentioned HealthEast’s hospitals. I mean, I know we’re the south metro and that’s east metro, but I know a number of people south of the river who’ve gone to Woodwinds, St. Josephs, and St. John’s. They seem to have some of the best ratings in the Twin Cities for catering to patients, particularly in child birth. I really don’t know much about them outside of that since we’ve only used them for births.
As for Fairview, my only real experience at Ridges was with their ER. The people were nice enough, but 4 hours to glue up a cut on my son’s forehead was insane. I doubt that’s much different than most ER’s, but it’s still inexcusable. I really wish Urgent Care would have taken a look at him instead. I went to Park Nicollet’s Urgent Care a few weeks ago and was in and out for 4 stitches in less than an hour.
June 24th, 2012 at 10:45 pm
The only “bad” experience I’ve had at a hospital was being admitted from the ER for a partial blockage and apparently they forgot to add me to the census. Not a big deal, really, unless you’re not allowed to eat anything without a doctor’s say-so (and residents don’t count) and the nurses don’t seem to care about the fact that a doctor hasn’t been into your room in almost 36 hours (and residents don’t count). The situation was fixed when a nurse overheard me bawling to my mother on the phone about the Mayo Clinic and a lawyer. My stay at the hospital ended up stretching to 2 weeks (after an appendectomy and three 72 hour stays over the course of a month) because no one could really figure out what the problem was. I don’t really have any complaints about my stay, other than the fact that the surgeon that was filling in for my surgeon (who was awesome BTW) had serious issues with his bedside manner (but what surgeon doesn’t), and the fact that no one really knew I was there for about a day. And I work for this healthcare system, BTW.
I’d say the best way to ensure that you get the best care at any hospital is to make sure you have someone with you that really doesn’t mind being “that guy/girl” and can help you advocate for yourself. I think some people are too scared or too sick to speak up when something doesn’t feel right.
As an aside, I’m interested to see how North Memorial is going to handle their business relationship with Accretive Health.
June 24th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Joey, in my experience with ER’s your experience sounds about right. I once waited for 6 hours to get an MRI for a migraine (they wanted to rule out a blood clot) and waited for 3 hours to see a doctor for chest pains. Obviously, that should have told me, right there, my ailments weren’t life threatening. When I came in with the partial blockage (which is extremely painful, the pain probably akin to being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach) I waited, vomiting and wailing, in the room for over 2 hours before they would give me pain medication. By then they could barely get a line in because I was so dehydrated. My friend actually said to the nurse, who promised the doc would be in soon (code for at least 45 minutes), “I hope someone is dying, because this wait is fucking ridiculous. I mean, listen to her.” In my experience, the lowest wait times at the ER are Sunday afternoons.
June 24th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Great! I’ll be sure to schedule my son’s next fall for Sunday afternoon. :)
Seriously though, I don’t know how you can experience the ER and not walk out thinking that something somewhere in the cog of our health care system is really, really wrong.
June 25th, 2012 at 8:00 am
I had two deliveries at Ridges seven and nine years ago. In both cases I had fantastic care, with the exception of the nurse who went on break and came back smelling like an ashtray. She was also the nurse who told my husband he had to leave the room at one point so he wouldn’t interfere when the Anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. He disagreed until she threatened to send in security…what the hell? Being that this was our 4th birth, he was pretty sure he knew what to expect.
We had good care, but I have to admit that I didn’t like having the care of the OB on call from Southdale OB. Naturally it was never a doctor I had seen in clinic…
June 25th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Other than a broken ankle 20+ years ago and a trip to St. John’s my only hospital experience has been at Ridges. Two emergency c-sections, and gallstones. The care was good, not great. Had better nurses for the birth 6 years ago vs 8.
My son had tubes put in his ears at Methodist and hernia surgery through Childrens Hospital. For us, the experience at Children’s was much better. It wasn’t that Methodist did a bad job, Children’s just was better. More communication and better service from ALL staff, doctors, nurses, insurance people, etc.
June 25th, 2012 at 9:07 am
dm, two of our three kids were born at Ridges (5 years ago and 8 years ago). Our oldest was born at Fairview University or whatever it’s called nowadays. Our experiences were overwhelmingly positive. All three births were natural, first one with morphine, next two with epidural. Everything went as planned, no complications. I pray to high heavens that we’re done having kids, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again at Ridges.
I’ve also had a couple experiences with Ridges ER. I agree that the wait can be extraordinarily long if you’re not there for an extremely acute emergency. Maybe it’s because it was kids, but the staff, doctors, etc. have all provided top-notch care…totally compassionate, very skilled. They were very considerate of my questions and concerns.
It’s horrible to hear these bad experiences. I imagine like any profession it’s a crap shoot based on what specific doctor you get. I’ve had the same experience with urgent cares — sometimes you get a knucklehead and sometimes you get someone spectacular. We’ve had great care through Fairview clinics and Ridges though.
June 25th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Sandy, I live on the eastside of St. Paul, so Southdale is a shorter trip for me. I’m due September 1st.
Tracy, I also use Southdale OB, and at this point in my pregnancy, I think there are only 2 doctors I haven’t seen, as they make a point to spread my appointments around so I see all the doctors so I’ll “know” who is on-call the day I go into labor.
When my dad died, he started at the ER of Ridges and ended up in the ICU at Southdale (Ridges didn’t have a cardio+thoracic surgeon and Southdale did). He received excellent care in both facilities. Though we lost him it was through no fault of the hospitals. (It was actually the urgent care on Galaxie that caused the problems. Stay far, far away from that place)
Thanks for the Ridges v. Southdale reviews, people, maybe I should have done a guest post asking for all your experiences :)
June 25th, 2012 at 10:15 am
Interesting that the urgent care on Galaxie was problematic. They’re the ones who wouldn’t even close up my son’s half-inch cut that just needed to be glued shut. One or two of the ER staff at Ridges said they would never go to urgent care. Now, I don’t know if they were referring to urgent care in general or the one on Galaxie, which was the only option at 7 PM on a Saturday. I used Park Nicollet’s urgent care across the street from Ridges and it went just fine.
I should also add that the staff at Ridges were excellent. The wait time was my only complaint, and to be honest if I had to choose, I’d rather get poor service in a half hour than excellent service that takes 4 hours, though I’m pretty certain that good service and fast service are not antonyms.
June 25th, 2012 at 10:32 am
well, i’ve spent more time in er’s and hospitals than i can count. we’ve had major problems with fv southdale and the u of m to the point of almost killing the mrs. at each place. if i hadn’t been on the ball i might be single as we speak. we’ve had problems with fv ridges also. we now deal with the minneapolis heart institute along with abbott nw. i have nothing but the best to say about my wife’s care at mhi and anw and would recommend them to anyone.
what you have to be careful of is the hospitalists. internal medicine md’s that work on your discharge plan. i think they’re at all hospitals. i think regardless what you’re in for, they write the discharge orders. they don’t know the patients(sp) like your family md does so they can change med’s around that might not be in agreement with what you should be on.
bottom line someone has to be on the ball and aware of what’s going on regardless of what your fave hospital is due to the other 1/2 is probably the reason you’re there in the first place. in our case our kids are grown up and gone so it’s just mr. and mrs. excitement.
bb
June 25th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Have had nothing but positive experiences at both Ridges and St. Frances ERs, must have been there at the right time because both were quick and excellent care. Also had a one day planned procedure at Ridges with my own doctor in charge and wonderful nursing care that kept me warm and comfortable.
When my mom needed some stitches for a bump on the head recently we took her up to the 212 Medical Center in Chaska. It’s an urgent care combined with ER WITHOUT a hospital. Triage was immediate and they thought her injury (at 91 years of age) was too complicated for the urgent care side so she was seen in the ER. They did all the tests I thought were needed quickly and with immediate feedback. I’m sure once more people start using this new center it will be a longer wait but we thought it was great.
June 25th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Joey, aside from my father’s issue, the urgent care on Galaxie gave me a prescription for Codeine when I had whooping cough. I’m allergic to Codeine, which was on my chart/whatever it’s called. If I hadn’t looked at the script print-out it would have been ugly.
June 25th, 2012 at 11:32 am
My mom has had both hips replaced at Woodwinds Hospital in Woodbury. I know on at least one of those occassions, her regular family practice doctor stopped in to check on her. I wonder if you get better care when your regular doctor is in the loop and can check on you well being.
June 25th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I went to the urgent care on Galaxie (Apple Valley Medical Center) because my left knee was swollen to three times its usual size. After two weeks of trying to treat it with Advil, ice/heat, rest, I went to the urgent care at the suggestion of The Wife.
I arrived and the doctor, after looking at it for 5 seconds, told me to take Advil and rest. When I told him that is exactly what I had been doing he told me to double the amount of Advil. That was it. I paid $25 for that. Needless to say I don’t go to urgent care any longer.
BTW, AVMC is my primary care clinic. I go there to have my prescription (which I’ve been taking since I am 21 years old) refilled annually. I spend the $25 (which is now a lot more than that due to our high deductible plan, fucking insurance companies and the PPACA) and they take my blood pressure and sign a new prescription for another year. Clearly they care about my well being immensely.
June 25th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
My wife delivered both of our children at St. France’s, and I must say they were fantastic each time. Both pregnancies were stressful for my wife and I. Our daughter was born via natural birth and the staff was fantastic, considering we came in at midnight and she wasn’t born until mid afternoon. Our son was a complete stressor, throught the pregnancy, and ended up needing an emergency c-section…which was very much the correct decission as his heart rate was dropping on each contraction. Add to that some unknowns going into the delivery, the staff was amazingly nurturing and comforting. What I also appreciated, was for both deliveries, my wifes obgyn was out of town, so we ended up with three differrent on-call obgyn’s and they were all great.
We have also had the fortune of using a pediatrician that is associate with children’s in mpls. I can not say enough about them! We have done two rounds of ear tubes for my son and an ER trip for my daughter, and the experience has been outstanding every time.
June 25th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Joey, sometimes I wish “BTW, I work here” would get me in and out of the ER quickly, but unfortunately, my credentials are unimpressive. Waiting that long sucks, but it’s par for the course and the same anywhere you go. Although, the staff snaps to a little bit if I mention it (probably because employees know who to complain to ;-)).
BTW, my regular doc at Park Nicollet is wonderful, and I recommend her to anyone in the market for an OB/Gyn (if you don’t mind having to wait a little to get in to see her). Also, the Urgent Care at Carlson Parkway has ridiculously low wait times.
June 26th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Unfortunately we have reason to use Fairview Southdale’s Day Surgery twice in the last week. As much as that sucks, and it really sucks, they do have their stuff together. No real complaints on how they process you through the system. But waiting for a loved one to get out of surgery is stressful. One’s mind tends to wonder into dark places. We’re onging for our boring, “normal” life….
June 26th, 2012 at 11:46 am
oops! Make that “longing” for our boring… life…
June 26th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Two kids born at Ridges – one four years ago and one a year ago. We’d choose to deliver there again based on the first two experiences. First delivery was a long one, the second was quick. Care was good both times – had good nurses, though the one we didn’t like was naturally working again with our second. The wife was not so afraid to speak her mind this time, and things went better. Southdale OBGYN was the doctors group, and given that out pregnancies were routine, we went with the doctor rotation both times. No surprises when we went to the hospital as a result.
No problems with asking for explanations on things either time. We did however have to watch the bills for the insurance companies – there were charges for services that we did not use on both pregnancies.
July 1st, 2012 at 7:02 am
[...] week’s poll asked about the quality of hospital care you or your family members have received. While I haven’t been all that impressed with how my family members were treated and [...]