WORST PRE-OP CLASS EVER!! Anyone know who I can report this to? (very long)
I went for my required pre-op class yesterday. Wow, just...wow. I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts enough to even type this.
First, this is very minor but an annoyance none the less- the class room was set up with just a bunch of chairs. I hate that. When I am going to a class where I will potentially want to take notes or organize papers in front of me, I expect tables. Maybe that's just me and my own pet peeve, but still, I hate writing in the air.
When the nurse came in she greeted everyone and admitted off the bat that she doesn't normally teach this class but the nurse who does is in surgery. So she was just going to go through the slides with us and answer any questions we had. Ok...great.
The first slide was the title slide of this very poorly put together power point presentation and it said "Bariatrics 101: Bypass/Sleeve." My first thought was "Shoot, am I in the wrong class?" but someone else had the same panicked thought I did and was brave enough to ask "what about the DS?" and the nurse said that this class includes the DS. Phew.
Let me jump WAY ahead (before I go back) and say that the DS was not mentioned, illustrated, or even referenced ONCE in the entire presentation. I have no idea what the hell I was doing there. Thankfully I have been researching the DS myself for over a year and thanks to YOU ALL I am very highly educated on it. I feel horrible for the people who were at this class because they wanted to learn about the DS, because it didn't happen. However I do suppose that if they made it that far in the process without knowing a lick about the DS, they probably aren't ready to have it anyway...but I digress.
Going back to the first slide. This nurse was NUTS! I am not sure what her normal specialty is but it isn't bariatrics, that's for DAMN sure. She referred to the "Bypass/sleeve" as a single surgery the entire time!!! She didn't even notice that some of the slides were of the RNY and some where of the sleeve. So she just made up a new surgery I guess. She also pointed to the GALLBLADDER and said "this here produces ghrelin and we remove that so you aren't hungry anymore, see that green thing, that's where the ghrelin comes from." OK- I have had NO medical training other than some CPR classes, but I am about 99.9% sure that is NOT true...that was very clearly the gallbladder and I'm pretty sure ghrelin is produced in the stomach, the portion of the stomach that is cut away, hence our lack of it. Omg!! What nurse doesn't know what or where a gallbladder is?
Moving on-- someone asked "what happens to the stomach that is cut away?" and she said "oh it just stays in there, it doesn't do anything it just stays there." and someone else specified "what about for the sleeve?" and she goes "Uuuummmmmmmmm...I'm pretty sure it stays in there." I am certain this confused her because I believe that up until this question she was still sure that the "bypass/sleeve" was one procedure. I had to tell the person after this class that no, the stomach is removed with the sleeve as well as the DS.
Wait, it gets better. I won't even blame this entire atrocity on her alone either! Even if SHE knew anything at all, the SLIDES still SUCKED! Who put this presentation together?? Nothing seemed right, slides were out of order, and even for the RNY some things sounded way to extreme. For example, one of the slides said that for the first YEAR after surgery you won't be able to eat more than 1/8 of a cup of food per meal. Idk what most RNY patients are told, but that seems very extreme. My RNY friends have all been able to eat more than that...but idk...maybe that's the aim. Then on another slide the first line read "For the first 3 weeks after surgery you will be on a liquid only diet." She read that and then reiterated "so sugar free jello, Gatorade, crystal light, stuff like that." No mention of broth or tea or WATER. And remember what she did say because I'll be referring back to that in a few. The next line on that slide said "The next 3 weeks you will be on 'mushies' only." She read that and then stopped, confused the HELL out of herself and decided that that made no sense and that you can't be on liquids and mushies at the same time. She wasn't getting that it said the NEXT 3 weeks, as in following the first 3 weeks. The last line said "After the 6th week you will be able to resume fairly normal foods." I know most of the people around me got it, but I saw a lot of very confused faces in the crowd. And my FAVORITE slide of the night was in the FAQ section. The slide showed the question "How much weight will I lose with this surgery?" first let me complain: A- which surgery???? The sleeve or RNY? and B- that is a highly individual question and can't really be answered other than with statistical percentages. The answer, however, was comical. "Men typically lose more weight because they have a higher muscle mass." That was the answer to that question. Yep. face/palm!
Still with me? OK- so after this dip-**** (I'm sorry, I am not usually so rude) raced through her slides and then publicly humiliated a couple of people for being 10 minutes late and therefore missing the entire presentation that was supposed to take an hour, she opened up the group for questions that she knew she couldn't answer. One lady asked if it would be ok to have artificial sweeteners after surgery and she said "No, absolutely not." So of course everyone started asking a million questions about that:
"What about natural sweeteners like agave and stevia?"- "Nope, you can't have any of that."
"Ok, what about fruits? Are you saying we can't have fruit??" -"You can't eat fruits, those are bad, they are very high in sugar." YOU CAN'T EAT FRUITS????
"What about vegetables that have high sugar content like carrots or corn?" - "You won't be able to have that, it's just not healthy."
"How about actual sugar?"- "Absolutely not, you won't be able to have anything that is sweet because that means it either has natural sugar or artificial sugars in it."
"Can we have milk?" - ready for it????? "OH yeah! You can have as much milk as you want!"
Ok, I just checked my gallon of skim milk and guess what- 11 grams of sugar in 8 oz!! And now I remind you of what she said the post-op liquid diet consists of. Ring a bell?? Does it make one lick of sense??? Ahh! This lady is so full of ****!
Now...I absolutely understand that it's best to stay away from sweet things because that might trigger a sugar craving that might lead you to eat foods high in sugar, but to say that you can never have anything that is sweet again? That is BS.
Luckily I am smart enough to not take one word of this crack pot seriously, but the horrific part of all of this is that so many of the people there DID! After class I heard people saying that they aren't going to get WLS anymore, even though they need it. So many people were scared off by this awful excuse of a class that they might not get the help that they need. Now, granted, if they are that easily swayed maybe they need more time...I know...but still. How sad. Not only was it the biggest waste of my time and I literally could have gotten up and rebutted every word she said, but it gave people WRONG information. I am not sure WHO selected HER to teach this class, but they did a huge disservice to the people in that class who were there to learn more. I was there because it's required as part of my pre-op program, but there was no point. As I said earlier, nothing was even mentioned of the DS. I wrote down the OH web address on multiple strips of paper and passed it out to a lot of people and begged them to do more of their own research and learn the truth about these surgeries rather than take anything she said as factual. I really hope some of them do come here for more information. If this wasn't her area of expertise, that's fine- but don't say things you don't even know for sure as fact when it's not. She should have just said "I'm sorry I am not sure about that, you should talk to your surgeon about that." If she doesn't know these things then she should not be put in a position of authority to tell people the wrong information.
Anyway, as you can tell by my raging out, I'm very upset at how poorly executed this class was and how awful the nurse was and how the results of this disgrace effected perspective WLS patients. WHO can I talk to about this? Who would you recommend I call or write a letter to so that this can be changed? I am fully prepared to put together my own Power Point presentation and send it off to them to use. Hell I'd even be more than happy to teach the freaking class but I don't have any medical experience so I know my word doesn't count for much.
If you're still with me, THANK YOU just for reading. I ramble when I'm on my soap box
First, this is very minor but an annoyance none the less- the class room was set up with just a bunch of chairs. I hate that. When I am going to a class where I will potentially want to take notes or organize papers in front of me, I expect tables. Maybe that's just me and my own pet peeve, but still, I hate writing in the air.
When the nurse came in she greeted everyone and admitted off the bat that she doesn't normally teach this class but the nurse who does is in surgery. So she was just going to go through the slides with us and answer any questions we had. Ok...great.
The first slide was the title slide of this very poorly put together power point presentation and it said "Bariatrics 101: Bypass/Sleeve." My first thought was "Shoot, am I in the wrong class?" but someone else had the same panicked thought I did and was brave enough to ask "what about the DS?" and the nurse said that this class includes the DS. Phew.
Let me jump WAY ahead (before I go back) and say that the DS was not mentioned, illustrated, or even referenced ONCE in the entire presentation. I have no idea what the hell I was doing there. Thankfully I have been researching the DS myself for over a year and thanks to YOU ALL I am very highly educated on it. I feel horrible for the people who were at this class because they wanted to learn about the DS, because it didn't happen. However I do suppose that if they made it that far in the process without knowing a lick about the DS, they probably aren't ready to have it anyway...but I digress.
Going back to the first slide. This nurse was NUTS! I am not sure what her normal specialty is but it isn't bariatrics, that's for DAMN sure. She referred to the "Bypass/sleeve" as a single surgery the entire time!!! She didn't even notice that some of the slides were of the RNY and some where of the sleeve. So she just made up a new surgery I guess. She also pointed to the GALLBLADDER and said "this here produces ghrelin and we remove that so you aren't hungry anymore, see that green thing, that's where the ghrelin comes from." OK- I have had NO medical training other than some CPR classes, but I am about 99.9% sure that is NOT true...that was very clearly the gallbladder and I'm pretty sure ghrelin is produced in the stomach, the portion of the stomach that is cut away, hence our lack of it. Omg!! What nurse doesn't know what or where a gallbladder is?
Moving on-- someone asked "what happens to the stomach that is cut away?" and she said "oh it just stays in there, it doesn't do anything it just stays there." and someone else specified "what about for the sleeve?" and she goes "Uuuummmmmmmmm...I'm pretty sure it stays in there." I am certain this confused her because I believe that up until this question she was still sure that the "bypass/sleeve" was one procedure. I had to tell the person after this class that no, the stomach is removed with the sleeve as well as the DS.
Wait, it gets better. I won't even blame this entire atrocity on her alone either! Even if SHE knew anything at all, the SLIDES still SUCKED! Who put this presentation together?? Nothing seemed right, slides were out of order, and even for the RNY some things sounded way to extreme. For example, one of the slides said that for the first YEAR after surgery you won't be able to eat more than 1/8 of a cup of food per meal. Idk what most RNY patients are told, but that seems very extreme. My RNY friends have all been able to eat more than that...but idk...maybe that's the aim. Then on another slide the first line read "For the first 3 weeks after surgery you will be on a liquid only diet." She read that and then reiterated "so sugar free jello, Gatorade, crystal light, stuff like that." No mention of broth or tea or WATER. And remember what she did say because I'll be referring back to that in a few. The next line on that slide said "The next 3 weeks you will be on 'mushies' only." She read that and then stopped, confused the HELL out of herself and decided that that made no sense and that you can't be on liquids and mushies at the same time. She wasn't getting that it said the NEXT 3 weeks, as in following the first 3 weeks. The last line said "After the 6th week you will be able to resume fairly normal foods." I know most of the people around me got it, but I saw a lot of very confused faces in the crowd. And my FAVORITE slide of the night was in the FAQ section. The slide showed the question "How much weight will I lose with this surgery?" first let me complain: A- which surgery???? The sleeve or RNY? and B- that is a highly individual question and can't really be answered other than with statistical percentages. The answer, however, was comical. "Men typically lose more weight because they have a higher muscle mass." That was the answer to that question. Yep. face/palm!
Still with me? OK- so after this dip-**** (I'm sorry, I am not usually so rude) raced through her slides and then publicly humiliated a couple of people for being 10 minutes late and therefore missing the entire presentation that was supposed to take an hour, she opened up the group for questions that she knew she couldn't answer. One lady asked if it would be ok to have artificial sweeteners after surgery and she said "No, absolutely not." So of course everyone started asking a million questions about that:
"What about natural sweeteners like agave and stevia?"- "Nope, you can't have any of that."
"Ok, what about fruits? Are you saying we can't have fruit??" -"You can't eat fruits, those are bad, they are very high in sugar." YOU CAN'T EAT FRUITS????
"What about vegetables that have high sugar content like carrots or corn?" - "You won't be able to have that, it's just not healthy."
"How about actual sugar?"- "Absolutely not, you won't be able to have anything that is sweet because that means it either has natural sugar or artificial sugars in it."
"Can we have milk?" - ready for it????? "OH yeah! You can have as much milk as you want!"
Ok, I just checked my gallon of skim milk and guess what- 11 grams of sugar in 8 oz!! And now I remind you of what she said the post-op liquid diet consists of. Ring a bell?? Does it make one lick of sense??? Ahh! This lady is so full of ****!
Now...I absolutely understand that it's best to stay away from sweet things because that might trigger a sugar craving that might lead you to eat foods high in sugar, but to say that you can never have anything that is sweet again? That is BS.
Luckily I am smart enough to not take one word of this crack pot seriously, but the horrific part of all of this is that so many of the people there DID! After class I heard people saying that they aren't going to get WLS anymore, even though they need it. So many people were scared off by this awful excuse of a class that they might not get the help that they need. Now, granted, if they are that easily swayed maybe they need more time...I know...but still. How sad. Not only was it the biggest waste of my time and I literally could have gotten up and rebutted every word she said, but it gave people WRONG information. I am not sure WHO selected HER to teach this class, but they did a huge disservice to the people in that class who were there to learn more. I was there because it's required as part of my pre-op program, but there was no point. As I said earlier, nothing was even mentioned of the DS. I wrote down the OH web address on multiple strips of paper and passed it out to a lot of people and begged them to do more of their own research and learn the truth about these surgeries rather than take anything she said as factual. I really hope some of them do come here for more information. If this wasn't her area of expertise, that's fine- but don't say things you don't even know for sure as fact when it's not. She should have just said "I'm sorry I am not sure about that, you should talk to your surgeon about that." If she doesn't know these things then she should not be put in a position of authority to tell people the wrong information.
Anyway, as you can tell by my raging out, I'm very upset at how poorly executed this class was and how awful the nurse was and how the results of this disgrace effected perspective WLS patients. WHO can I talk to about this? Who would you recommend I call or write a letter to so that this can be changed? I am fully prepared to put together my own Power Point presentation and send it off to them to use. Hell I'd even be more than happy to teach the freaking class but I don't have any medical experience so I know my word doesn't count for much.
If you're still with me, THANK YOU just for reading. I ramble when I'm on my soap box
Stephanie
http://watchstephlose.blogspot.com/
Exactly!! I am going to talk to the surgeon about it on my next visit. It ****** me off too! No excuse for that...just...ugh!
Stephanie
http://watchstephlose.blogspot.com/
He doesn't have anything to do with those classes. And in fact I'm very sure that when I tell him about this he will want to fix this given how PRO DS and ANTI RNY he is. The two surgeons that she kept mentioning by name here Juarez and Fang...not Husted.
Stephanie
http://watchstephlose.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth, you are one of my favorite vets to learn from. I always read your comments to other posters and I am aware that you have a very strong opinion on the matter.
I'm not at all arguing with you or anyone else. I'm just wondering if you could provide me with more information on why you so strongly advise against him - other than his frequent flier status.
I have done much research although I don't think I'm aware of the case you mentioned. Could you direct me to this?
I'm not at all arguing with you or anyone else. I'm just wondering if you could provide me with more information on why you so strongly advise against him - other than his frequent flier status.
I have done much research although I don't think I'm aware of the case you mentioned. Could you direct me to this?
Stephanie
http://watchstephlose.blogspot.com/
You should look up the legal proceedings against him in the state of Kentucky. You should look up OH member lorrilee. You should know that he has declared bankruptcy....after a lawsuit was filed by the widower of a patient who died after alleged medical malpractice. You should know that a patient who suffered devastating complications after his work on her required reeoperation and was found to have a twenty centimeter common channel.
It stuns me no end that so many people can't see that the mere fact that a surgeon who is one of fewer than 100 in the world to do a procedure, who was once lauded as one of THE GREATS at that procedure, cannot keep a job even in East Podunk KY, is a HUGE HUGE HUGE warning flag. Surgeons do NOT have this kind of job record if they are good at what they do.
I know a woman whose health was destroyed by his rotten treatment and who is in misery to this very day. She doesn't want her information publicized. I'm aware of others who have had nothing but problems with him. If they want to to chime in, they will.
I don't think you've done enough research at all. A search on a physician's license and status is easy to do. Complaints lodged against a physician are a matter of public record.
Have you seen longterm vets here truly get up in arms over NOTHING on subjects of such importance as this one? Do you think we'd waste the energy if there was nothing there?
Do a history search on this forum about Dr. Husted and legal issues. It's there.
It stuns me no end that so many people can't see that the mere fact that a surgeon who is one of fewer than 100 in the world to do a procedure, who was once lauded as one of THE GREATS at that procedure, cannot keep a job even in East Podunk KY, is a HUGE HUGE HUGE warning flag. Surgeons do NOT have this kind of job record if they are good at what they do.
I know a woman whose health was destroyed by his rotten treatment and who is in misery to this very day. She doesn't want her information publicized. I'm aware of others who have had nothing but problems with him. If they want to to chime in, they will.
I don't think you've done enough research at all. A search on a physician's license and status is easy to do. Complaints lodged against a physician are a matter of public record.
Have you seen longterm vets here truly get up in arms over NOTHING on subjects of such importance as this one? Do you think we'd waste the energy if there was nothing there?
Do a history search on this forum about Dr. Husted and legal issues. It's there.
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