"I had my surgery in March 17, 2003. I thank GOD that I had my entire family with me going in. In fact, I had a total of 35 family members visit with me during my stay at SIUH. My mom and my two daughters took turns staying overnight with me. If it wasn't for my family being there to take care of me, I highly doubt if the staff would have been as attentive as they were to me. I was treated like royalty! It was amazing. The surgical staff is excellent, however the nursing staff need attitude adjustments. They are very nasty and unprofessional. I watched how they mistreated other patients, and I felt sorry for them. Again I was treated greatly because my family saw too it that I was not mistreated. I would only recommend this hospital if a person has a very strong support group to make sure that they are well taken care of. The other downside I could speak of is the fact that this hospital followed me through my entire pre-op phase, but after the surgery, it was like being put out into the world with no where to go - this is not a great feeling at all."
"Well, I was very suprised to see how young Dr. Nicastro was. He seemed a bit chilly at first, but after he got into the consultation, he was pretty friendly.
I attended a support group meeting that Dr. Nicastro was facilitating, and I walked away from the meeting feeling frightened, but enlighted about all the risk of surgery. He was straight forward and to the point.
The staff is excellent. Although they are extremely busy, they seem to be very dedicated to helping me.
What I least liked about Dr. Nicastro was his chilling way of explaining the risk of the surgery, however I don't think he skipped a beat. It was like being in a surgical classroom.
Future patients should braced themselves to be told the "gorry" details of the surgery and that Dr. Nicastro will not blink an eye when explaining them to you.
Dr. Nicastro placed great emphasis on aftercare. In fact, he placed great emphasis on every detail of the pre-op and post-op phases!
Dr. Nicastro drew a diagram of the roux-y and the duodenal switch. He explained that the first is a restriction with some malabsorbic detail and the second is a malabsorbic procedure with some retriction. He further explained in detail what action is taken for each procedure. His explanation of the risk for both procedures were extremely gory.
In rating Dr. Nicastro from 1 to 10, I have to give him a 9 1/2 because he was very informative. However, I beleive he should warm up a little with patients because after all the surgery is to be performed on Human beings not mechanical things.
I believe his surgical competence far outweighs his bedside manner. It is a great quality to be a "no-nonsense" kind of Doctor, but again, people, in general want to feel that the Doctor cares about them as a person.
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