I would not recommend Trinity ENT. While everyone from the front office staff to the PA's to the doctors is extremely pleasant and the office runs with incredible efficiency, they will leave you woefully underinformed and in a poor position to make informed positions to best advance your health.
In my case, I was recommended a turbinate reduction, sinoplasty, and sinuplasty. I have no doubt that I did in fact need these services as I have struggled with nasal breathing for most of my life. It was at least worth a try. However, I expressed to the PA at that time that I am a high school teacher and would like to do this in such a way that I didn't need to take any time off. She told me that most people are good to go and back to work within three days; so, I scheduled the surgery during second week of the winter break. What she failed to mention is that there is a statistically significant chance of post-operative bleeding that might require nasal packing in the second week of healing. After looking into it, this risk is statistically significant with just turbinate reduction alone, and the odds are amplified when that surgery is combined with others as in my case. I was never warned that this was even a possible outcome. Nasal packing comes with a plethora of terrible side effects that had me sidelined (horrible headaches, inability to breathe through the unpacked nostril, an inability to sleep, exacerbated sleep apnea, and so on), and so I had to take days off from work anyway. If the PA had informed me of this possible outcome, I would have put the surgery off until summer to ensure I had enough time to account for all contingencies. Because she left me underinformed, I had to burn sick days and set my students off on an inefficient start to their second semester.
Continuing with the nasal packing issue, when the packing was placed, I was not warned about ANY of the possible side-effects I would experience. Once again, the doctors left me with a fun surprise rather than working to leave their patients as informed as possible about the treatments they were receiving.
In addition, quick research through the NIH database of medical articles shows that nasal packing isn't even the recommended first practice in cases of posterior epistaxis because of the horrid side effects, risks of Toxic Shock Syndrome, and the high rate of failure (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3102162/). Cauterization is the recommended first practice with nasal packing acting as a follow up when cautery cannot be performed for some reason. Cauterization was never even mentioned as an option for me. In my follow-up appointment to have the packing removed, I asked the doctor what my other options are if a rebleed occurs because I wasn't going to be doing the nasal packing again. She shrugged and said packing is the only option. So, either they are ignorant of the cautery option, lied about the cautery option, or just didn't feel like explaining why cautery wasn't an option in my case. No option paints their care in a positive light.
Ultimately, I should have known that this office is focused on sales rather than patient care. I went in to get my throat examined after an injury and ended up getting a sales pitch for surgeries on my nose. That's my bad. I sniffed the sales bit at the time but had also been considering this surgery for a while, so I went with it. I should have assumed the sales came not just with pushing the surgery but presenting it in its most positive light possible without discussion of the likely struggles or drawbacks. While sitting in the front office for my appointments, there was ALWAYS someone calling in about the nasal packing; so, the office knows this is a common occurrence and fails to mention it before you have the surgery. So, this is yet another instance in present medicine where you cannot trust your doctors; you have to inform yourself fully. Here's to hoping the surgery at least has its intended effects once I'm healed up! read more