I am writing this post to warn others about an incompetent doctor. His name is Dr. James Taggart and currently works at SEARHC Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka, Alaska. He performed a gastric sleeve surgery on me June 21 of last year. I could not eat anything without feeling nauseous or throwing up for almost a year. I kept telling him repeatedly that something was wrong and he would not listen, he just kept putting me off and putting me off telling me it will get better soon. Finally after 7 months of non-stop sickness and extreme vitamin deficiencies, he finally decided to do a scope to see what was going on. What he wrote in his notes was exactly what was wrong and worse but he told me everything looked fine and I was good to go. A week later I received a phone call from him asking how I was doing and I said the same and he flat out told me I don't know what is wrong with you. I then decided it was time to get a second opinion. My new surgeon knew what was wrong within 10 minutes of talking to him and he hadn't even seen my records yet. He stressed how important it was to get it taken care of right away because I am basically skin and bones and extremely vitamin deficient. He did a scope the next week and he told me it was much worse than he thought and 3 weeks later he had to go in and turn my sleeve into a bypass because my stomach was shaped like an hourglass and my intestines were kinking over the whole that your food from your stomach goes into your intestines so nothing was going down, it was all coming back up. Dr. Taggart had told me to double up on my multivitamin and that should help my vitamin deficiencies, which I had already told him they were not staying down anyway. So I took it upon myself to research the vitamins I was deficient in and order dissolvable vitamins for everything and was able to get my numbers back up. I had my second surgery on June 1st of this year and I'm only on the soft foods diet but am feeling 100% better. I need to put on at least 30 pounds to be at a good weight and be healthier. I highly recommend if you live in Alaska and are thinking about having weight loss surgery to NOT go to Sitka and have Dr. Taggart do it. I know of several other people who he screwed up their surgeries as well. He should not be doing this surgery on anybody or practicing medicine if he has no idea what he is doing. I am writing this because I do not want anyone else to have to go through what I have endured the last year. And anyone can feel free to message me if you have any questions or would like to hear more because there is much much more that was extremely awful as well. read more
