Kaiser Permanente in California

[DarleneN]

My 33 year old son's AN tumor is 3.5 cm, so surgery is probably his only option.  I want him to have the best surgeon available--and I strongly doubt that there will be one in the Kaiser system.  Has anyone dealt with AN surgery within the Kaiser Permanente system?  I'd love suggestions as to how to deal with them before his first neurosurgeon appointment on Tuesday, December 1, 2009.  Thanks!

[Syl]

Darlene:

I'm in Stockton and have Kaiser insurance. Since there wasn't a Kaiser Dr. doing AN surgeries in Stockton, they refered me to Dr. Kato in Fremont. I was comfortable with her and her team so I chose to stay with her. There is also a Neurosurgeon in Redwood City who does AN surgeries.

I don't know what you would need to do should you want to go to an outside Dr.

Do you know the name of the Dr. your son's appt is with on Tuesday?
Syl

[leapyrtwins]

Darlene -

put "Kaiser" in the search box and you'll find several threads with information that might be useful to you.

Dr. Stephen Nutik is at Kaiser in Redwood City; Drs. Cueva (neurotologist)  and Mastrodimas (neurosurgeon) are at Kaiser in San Diego.

Jan

[sacking]

Dr. Hawk in Roseville was listed as one of the top 100 neurosurgeons by Sacramento Magazine.

He does the surgery. There's another dr that does the radiosurgery.

[msswartz]

Hi,

I recently had my AN removed by Dr Stephen Nutilk in Redwood City, Kaiser.  And though he does not seem to be the most friendly person to me, he has had over 35 years of experience doing this kind of surgery.  Technically he did a good job on me.  I am just going through some of the normal but unfortunate after effects of this kind of thing.  But he said he is pretty much Kaiser, Northern Calif's Go-To guy for this kind of tumor.  He used to be the head of neurosurgery too.  He is a very serious guy and is supposed to be very good. 

Initially he was very nice, very serious, but friendly.  He encouraged me to explore the cyber-knife option with Dr Tse (pronounced Shay) and helped me to decide.  Based on the advice about my particular tumor size and location, I opted for open surgery.   The followup has been interesting.  And in all fairness I think it is effected by the personalities involved and I have been very anxious about my recovery and have probably tested his patience.   Having said that, he has always answered my follow up emails and inquiries but his answers have been short and to the point, nothing really friendly.  When I saw him for the followup, he seemed genuinely sorry for what I was going through and seemed very confident that I would recover fully in time.  It is my body and my life so I am more emotional about it.   He seems like a very good but a very business-like doctor to me.  But again, he did a very good job on me and getting the tumor out is what was important.

Michael

[lil_lyd]

have you gone to kaiser? I had my surgery at kaiser in San Diego. Dr Cuevas was the surgeon and he was assisted by a neurosurgeon. they were really nice and the hospital stay was great. He was able to answer all my questions. hope this helps.