1 /5 Kathy Cooper: Today my husband had a operation scheduled for 12:30pm with an Oncology Surgeon practicing out of Anaheim Global Medical Center, Dr. Melinda Lamb.
We waited two weeks for the hospital to contact us about a Radiology appointment my husband needed before the surgery. We were not told by the doctor if the appointment would be on the date of the surgery or before.
A few days before the surgery date, I called Dr. Lambs office to let her know we have not heard anything from the hospital. Her nurse/receptionist says just to wait, they will call. GREAT!
At almost 5pm the evening before the sugery, we get a call from the hospital asking my husband to be there at 6:30am. I ask her why since the surgery isnt until 12:30pm? We cant arrive that early, we have an 8 year old to drop off at school & the school grounds arent open until 7am. I dont have anyone else to drop him off. And we live more than a half hour away. The hospital representative calls the Radiology Dept to see if we can arrive at 7:30am. The Radiology Dept doesnt even open before 8am so they said, that was OK.
Due to an accident on the 5 fwy and the Google GPS taking us to the back of an Urgent Care instead of the hospital, we we arrived at 7:45am.
The intake nurse said it wasnt a problem the same situation happened to a few patients that morning. She started taking us back to Pre-Op only to be stopped and reprimanded by my husbands surgeon, Dr. Lamb, for not arriving at 6:30am. I tried to explain, she told me not to speek and just cancelled the surgery. She said, "she can not be upset like this before surgery." She was very unprofessional. JThe Radiology Dept still had plenty of time to complete their part before the surgery. Four hours and 40 minutes and they only needed 4 hours.
If the hospital had called at least 24 hours in advance this situation would not have happened. The intake nurse was so upset about it being cancelled she came out to our car to apologize.
Also, the hospital needs to update their procedures so their patients can provide their health information ahead of time electronically, like so many other medical facilities.
The staff we got to see were very nice and accommodating. The only other comment I have about the hospital is it looks really old inside.
The surgeon is a whole other issue. Very unprofessional and lacks confidence in herself as a surgeon if 15 minutes affects her ability to do a surgery. I highly recommend you avoid Dr Melinda Lamb whose office is in Costa Mesa and only practices out of this hospital.
