MALPRACTICE AT EVERY TURN!  IF YOU LIVE IN SW MISSOURI, SAVE A LIFE AND GO TO BARNES IN ST. LOUIS!!!  COX SOUTH IS NOT GOING TO READ THE PATIENT'S CHARTS.  THEY ARE NOT GOING TO DO PROACTIVE MEDICINE.  I'm sorry about the all caps. . . but I can not stress this enough.  Part I The short version.  My father showed up w/ pneumonia, was placed in ICU, and waited 48 hours to have his antibiotics administered, all while the hospital was trying to chase down pulmonary issues.  After 4 days in the hospital, they still have had no chest scan.  They managed to diminish his health to the point of needing a ventilator. . this took them a few days to achieve, but they managed it none the less.  They CERTAINLY have a system where the nurses are not encouraged to think for themselves, where they do ZERO proactive medicine, and everyone there thinks that this is how real hospitals operate.  Newsflash: It isn't.   This hospital is a joke. The longer version: My father is currently in Cox South. After working as a pharmacist for Cox South for 15-20 years, he now has to suffer the complete lack of care and incompetence they're dishing out . . . even in the ICU! I'll try to make this as short as possible.  My father was ill and went to the Cox South ER.  After four hours he was not seen, so he went home.  The next day he went to Mercy, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia.  The he went home.  Two days later, he was still feeling ill, and had a car accident, at which point he had a broken vertebrae, a broken cheekbone, and a broken rib. He was taken to Cox South, who saw him and dismissed him on the same day.  Over the next few days, my father was having issues breathing and was passing out, and an ambulance finally took him back to Cox South. After a very short stay in the hospital (1 day), he was transferred to ICU, which as the name implies, is supposed to be the best care any hospital can provide.  They knew he came in with existing issues, which they were not to blame for, but they also knew that he was having issues breathing, which is ultimately why he came back to the hospital. . . . One would think that they would be looking into a pulmonary blockage.  Not so.  They seemed to dally around, finding it okay to simply try and maintain his issues.  No aggressive investigating or testing.  Now, they did something. . . but nothing to address the actual reason that brought him to the hospital. Luckily for us, we have an highly educated nurse in the immediate family with 40 years of real medical experience.  This family member was able to not only assist in communicating the treatment into terms I was able to understand, but was also able to try and communicate with the staff what our concerns were.  Not only that, they were able to help point out what we felt was being overlooked.  To their credit, the nursing staff was always very friendly, but they passed the buck constantly.  They were always saying 'that's not the way we do it here', or 'I can try to pass that on to the Dr.. . . ' or something along those lines.  However, we then had to start all over when we came back after shift change, as nothing was ever noted in the chart.   We told every nurse for 48 hours that our father had pneumonia, and that Cox was not giving him is antibiotic for it, all the while they were mystified by the difficulty he was having breathing. Guess what?  Not one single nurse wrote that in the chart or passed it on to the physician.  After 48 hours, our family members simply refused to leave until they ordered the antibiotics and started administering them.  This took 3 1/2 hours.   We also (thanks to the nurse in our family) had to point out that they needed to draw blood samples for future testing before antibiotics were introduced.  The nurses actually argued with us about this, but eventually gave in. After 48 hours in the ICU, all while no antibiotics were given for a preexisting issue, and with no chest scan/MRI done, my father finally deteriorated to the point of having to be put on a ventilator.  Surprise, surprise. A day later, a respiratory therapist came in, and during our consult, the nurse in our family asked about the AA gradient.  The RT said that he/she didn't know what it was, but that the machine could simulate it.  He/she didn't know it, or seem to be concerned why he/she should be paying attention to it.  The nurse in our family checked the barometric pressure that day, whipped out a calculator, and figured out the AA gradient in about 20 seconds.  I'm not kidding.  The AA gradient showed that our fathers lungs were not processing oxygen, and to what degree they were not  (based on a numbers scale).  Huh, that seems pretty interesting information to have if you were supposedly tracking down how severe a patient's lung conditions were. read more

Part II This morning, we finally saw a nurse practitioner who was checking in.  Again, they were very friendly.  They told us what they were doing, and asked what our concerns were.  We expressed that we didn't think that they were being very proactive.  We complained that they had our father in ICU for 48 hours without administering antibiotics for a preexisting case of pneumonia.  That they still didn't know the cause of the breathing difficulty, and yet they had done no chest scan.  The NP actually started the conversation by saying 'I'm assuming that we did a chest scan. . . '  We told the NP no, at which point they (and the attending nurse) acted very surprised, and led us to believe that this was a poor decision on behalf of the hospital.  We already knew that, of course.  We then asked why it took days for them to try and address the blood gas issues our father had.  Again, both played the role of shock. . . even saying 'that didn't happen in ICU did it?  Another unit in the hospital would possibly do that, but not ICU?'  We, again, had to point out that yes, all of this happened in ICU.   While their sympathy is appreciated, it really points out once again what one of the major problems is.  NO ONE IS READING THE CHARTS.  If the NP read the chart, they would have seen that no chest scan was ever done.  Or that the patient waited days for pneumonia to be addressed, all while the hospital was supposedly trying to figure out the breathing issues the patient was having.  The attending nurses. . . constantly acted surprised when we gave them information that was concerning, be it from a human perspective, or a health care professional perspective.  What on earth is going on there?   My father is now on a breathing ventilator, while the idiotic RT experiments with trying to reduce how much the machine is doing, without even knowing why my fathers lungs are not processing oxygen, or understanding why you can't just trust a machine to give human care.  I'll tell you why, because it doesn't work.  My father could be worse, a state that the hospital seems eager to achieve, but he could certainly be better.  In fact, he was better when he showed up at Cox.  I'm not kidding.   Believe me, this is the shortened version.  I haven't even addressed all of the horrible, horrible care I witnessed.  And while I have just recapped all of the above, let me express that I am not a medical expert.  Not even close.  And while I can't stand for people to criticize a discipline that they themselves don't know, let me assure you that even a small child could see how absurd all of this was.  Imagine having an interior decorator come to your house to do some painting.  Then all of the sudden they started knocking down the walls to your house and jerking the plumbing out of the walls. . . my guess is that you would be able to understand that this is ridiculous. . . even without being an interior decorator yourself. This hospital suffers from a horrible system where a majority of their staff is educated by the hospitals own school, and never has experience outside of Cox. (Mercy does the same thing)  They also suffer from crippling the nurses so they don't think for themselves.  While all this is going on, the Dr.'s naturally must start to think that they can do no wrong, because they are never challenged by staff or patients. (even while Cox is zapping patient's brains with an uncalibrated radiation machine.  Yes, they did this for years).  A medical professional that is used to working in a hospital that is actually focused on health care would rarely be interested in staying in this subpar environment, therefor removing the possibility that the staff can learn how real medicine is practiced elsewhere.  Believe me, I understand that this sounds like a wildly extreme perspective. . . the sad thing is. . . . . it isn't extreme enough. If you want care for your loved ones, please, please, please get them out of the Ozarks. read more