While I can speak highly of my experience and my two-year old daughter's experience with Dr. Gogia and Dr. Howard at this practice, I could not advise more strongly to stay away from Dr. Nichols. Both my daughter and myself saw Dr. Nichols with bumps that had the possibility of being MRSA. From the moment Dr. Nichols entered the room with me holding my daughter in my arms to as I sit here now, my impression of Dr. Nichols began poorly and has continued to the deteriorate.
When Dr. Nichols entered our patient room and saw me holding our daughter, he promptly walked to the opposite corner of the room, saying nothing, with his P.A. following him. In fact, I am not sure if Dr. Nichols even looked at us when he entered the room. After about 10 seconds of awkward silence, I carried my daughter to the middle of the room, stuck out my hand and said, "you must be Dr. Nichols?" He responded that he was and I initiated a handshake by saying, "nice to meet you." Dr Nichols finally commenced the exam of me and my daughter shortly thereafter.
Both myself and my daughter had bumps on our torso, however, mine had visible puss and hers did not. Dr. Nichols looked at my daughter's bumps and since he did not see puss, discarded that they were not MRSA, instead saying they were bug bites. He said there was nothing to culture in her bumps due to the lack of visible puss, which astonished both our pediatrician and the head pediatrician. He then looked at my bumps and determined shortly after looking at the bumps that it was likely MRSA and did a culture.
Here I was, holding my two-year old, with a doctor telling me I most likely had MRSA, a highly contagious and dangerous staph infection, and yet he is convinced that my daughter with very similar looking bumps just has bug bites. Dr. Nichols put me on antibiotics immediately and did not prescribe any oral medicine for my daughter's "bites." This was on a Thursday.
By Monday, my daughter's bumps were still there and had become more red. We promptly went to our pediatrician as there was no way I trusted Dr. Nichols to properly care for my daughter. The pediatrician looked at the bumps, immediately knew they had to be drained, and could not believe the negligence Dr. Nichols displayed by my not culturing the bumps. This went on for three days of draining these bumps before my daughter was finally admitted to UCSF for surgery to drain the bumps.
Dr. Nichols' behavior went from negligent to flat out getting in the way of our treatment. When we met with our surgeon two days before the surgery, his assistant said that Dr. Nichols had contacted them saying we were coming into the emergency room the night before. This came after my pediatrician had texted Dr. Nichols directly telling him our plan and that we did not need his assistance. I found it extremely unprofessional that Dr. Nichols' called another doctor with information about us and our daughter which was completely erroneous.
The worst part about all of this was the pain and suffering our two-year old daughter had to endure because Dr. Nichols discarded my daughter's condition so quickly. If she had been evaluated possibly with MRSA as I had, she could have started antibiotics much sooner and it is a high likelihood based upon the medical opinion of the three other doctors are daughter saw that she would have healed faster, and most importantly, avoided surgery. For any parent reading this, I hope you never have to witness your daughter screaming to the high heavens for 70 minutes while nurses try and fail four times to get a vein for her IV in her hand and foot. That was pure hell for our daughter and pure misery for me as I held her close by her face telling her repeatedly "you are doing so well, hang in there." Again, an experience that was very likely avoidable if Dr. Nichols had gone beyond the "standard of care."
I mention "standard of care" because after waiting two and a half months to find out from an independent consultant whether we could receive any financial compensation for our bills and pain and suffering for our daughter, the consultant concluded that Dr. Nichols met the "standard of care." What a world we live in where the bar is set so low for Dr. Nichols.
After all of this, more than anything my wife and I would just like Dr. Nichols to reach out to us and say I am sorry for all of the agony your daughter endured along with you while you cared for her and your other daughter of 2 months. Forget admitting culpability, which apparently there was none because Dr. Nichols met the "standard of care," just some human empathy from Dr. Nichols would have prevented me from sitting here while my daughters nap to compose this review. We have heard nothing from Dr. Nichols. read more
