"Published
Dr Keshishian is currently doing his surgeries primarily in Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, CA. The following is a Brief review of the hospital itself based on my 10 days in the facility from the perspective of a morbidly obese person.
The good:
Throughout the hospital there are a multitude of large chairs comfortable for a person of larger stature
Lab: blood work chair is very very large and accommodating. At 370 lbs almost two of me would have fit in that chair. The phlebotomists are very good at finding veins on the first try - yay!
The admissions and pre-surgical process is very smooth. Patients are guided through like celebrities.
Plenty of extremely large hospital gowns are available without asking.
The not so good:
The radiology department does not have equipment to support most morbidly obese patients. I needed to have an upper GI study and it took convincing from Dr. K to have them give me the test. We had to do it standing instead of laying down as their table supports only 300 lbs. I also had to have a central (PICC) line installed. The table for that procedure supported only 250 lbs. At the time I weighed 344. Again, Dr. K had to talk to them into completing the procedure. They ended up putting a tripod type device under the machine to hold the table up. I was quite angry and frustrated about the hoops I had to jump through with radiology due to my size.
There was not an adequate scale in the entire hospital. The one they rolled into my room went up to 350 lbs and did not do a good job weighing me when I was close to this weight. I also weighed more than this pre-surgery. There were digital scales on other floors but they only went up to 250 lbs.
Some good/some bad:
The nursing staff was inconsistent. Day and night shifts lasted 7 to 7. Some of the nurses were very compassionate, helpful and gave good patient care - France, Rosemary and Janice were among the best. Some of the CNAs were also very good. Angelica and Maria were always ready to do whatever they could for me and were very nice. A couple of the others ranged from not so hot to dangerously bad. One of the nurses in particular smelled like alcohol (was she drinking?) Worked only the night shift and was always sleeping on the job. She hurt me several times through being careless. For example, one day she decided to un-tape my iv line and even though I urged her to be careful because my iv was so fragile, she dropped it on the floor, causing it to infiltrate a few hours later. She also acted confused all of the time. Once I took a shower and asked her to help me with my dressing afterward. I waited forever for her to wake up enough to come help me and when she got there, she said after I take a shower she would help me and asked if I needed towels. This made no sense as she had been the one who covered my IV site before I showered and I had obviously wet hair and was wearing a towel. I made a complaint to the nursing supervisor. I think she may have a drinking problem. Another (tenured) nurse began panicking about my iv and all of the medications I was on. She said multiple times "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!" I advised her to call my Dr. immediately and talk to him about whatever she was unsure of.
Overall, I would give this hospital a B-.
**Update** I told my surgeon about my concerns and dissatisfaction with the hospital's readiness to help obese patients. He immediately brought in all of the higher-ups for me to talk to. I spoke to the head of nursing (somewhat dismissive), and the Bariatrics program coordinator (appropriately concerned). They re-assured me that my concerns will be addressed and I feel somewhat confident they will be."
