I Literally, Physically WALKED OUT moments before my Surgery with Dr Lai. What would compel me to do such a thing? Read on. I myself work in the medical field and have experience in the surgery setting. I have an injury that causes me severe pain and swelling to my Right shoulder and I was treated with a cortisone injection by Dr. Lai. The injection was successful but wore off after 3 months, and rather than repeating it every so often to treat my injury conservatively, I was told I needed surgery which required shaving the bone down. Since I was in so much pain, i opted to proceed with the procedure and waited for the Pre Op instructions. Since my case was a workers' comp injury, i took it upon myself to reach out to my insurance and get the authorization for the surgery ( this is normally done by the surgeon and his staff. After I got the authorization, i forwarded it to Dr. Lai's staff and his surgery coordinator. Two days before my surgery, I had not received any calls from Dr Lai's office for a pre op lab and as I call his coordinator she tells me " you are set to go, you labs look great" I HAD NOT HAD ANY LABS. I had her get me the lab order. I contacted my insurance to get my own authorization for the test as I saw Dr. Lai's coordinator was not on top of my case. Once resulted, i obtained my own lab results and I forwarded them to the hospital and Dr. Lai's staff. ( she should have done all this) Nobody called me with the arrival time for the hospital so I called myself to inquire. I was asked to arrive at 5:30 AM with instructions that I followed to perfection. Upon arrival, they did not have my pre op lab results and wanted to draw more labs which I had gotten done 12 hours prior. I luckily had a copy of my results that I handed to them. I was also told that I had arrived to early. I however had arrived at the time I had been given. The nurse who treated me Zenaida could NOT find a vein to start and IV if her life depended on it... but it was MY LIFE that would depend on it. She placed an IV on the wrong arm which would be the one where I would have surgery and had to remove it and place it on the other arm. It took her 4 tries to finally successfully get the IV in place but she was really rough and rude as if she was doing me a favor. After the IV was place the drip was going too fast. I would not stop urinating and the nurse kept emptying my urine container only to realize the drip was too fast and that it wasn't needed and closed the drip to a slower pace. All the while, all the nurses kept having loud conversations in their native Tagalog which is the language of the Philippines. Out of courtesy they should have spoken English but courtesy is something they lack greatly. The hygiene in the Pre Op room was lacking also. I met with 2 anesthesiologist who were supposed to numb my arm with anesthesia. After 2 tries and an excruciating procedure, my arm did not completely get numb. This anesthesia was supposed to last about 3 days and I never fully got numbness in my arm. Surgery was to be on my shoulder and the only thing that got numb was my elbow and neck. Anesthesia COMPLETELY wore off after 10 hours or so. I can only imagine if I had gone through the surgery the pain I would have been in. The surgeon arrived and was wandering the halls lost. Apparently he did not know where he was. After 10 AM, 5 hours after they told me to arrive, I finally decided I had seen enough red flags and decided to call the nurses to remove the IV. For 5 hours I had never been paid attention to and now the whole staff wanted to be of assistance. Of course!, they were going to loose the insurance money. How much? I don't know, but surgery is not cheap.! I literally, physically walked out of the OR dept w/o the surgery that I so much needed because I was NOT about to entrust my life into the incompetent hand of the team I had to deal with that day; and it turned out to be the best decision I made. My bed neighbor talked to me about the horrible experiences she had with the staff as well and that just confirmed everything I saw. I may be in the medical field but I went in as a patient and gave it enough time. I went in with an open mind but everything I was was enough for me to decide that I would rather live with a torn tendon and a pinched nerve which causes me daily pain than to trust the staff at this hospital. Stay away; and believe me, I will make sure these people know what was done to me. STAY AWAY IS NOT ENOUGH OF A WARNING. Do you think anyone reached out to me after this horrible Experience? NO.. Neither Dr. Lai's staff nor the hospital called me. I called the hospital to place a complaint in 3 different departments and sent Emails. I never received an email response nor a call back, though I was sure to leave my contact information. read more