Hospitals for the Surgery-- Cedars Sinai or St. Vincent in Los Angeles

[bpham]

I just talked to the specialist at HEI (House Ear Inst) and he told the Surgery Advisor at HEI to arrange for the insurance approvals and also the hospital where my surgery will take place. The doctor wants to perform the surgery at Cedars Sinai hospital in West LA, however, HEI is currently located next to St. Vicent which has been the place where most of the AN surgeries taken place.

I asked the Surgery Advisor why not here at St. Vincent, she indicated that the doctor wants to perform the surgery at Cedars Sinai hospital in the West LA area and  I asked her why, and she indicated that the doctor wants to do it there more now because he wants to move his practice there. 

I'm ambivalent about this since I'm not sure that is better for me or not?  However, at the same token, may be he is more comfortable with the other facility more?   It is hard to say and so I need to find out which one is better so I can request that. 

Anyone who has had the operations done in both Cedars and St. Vincent please let me have your experiences.

Thanks.

[Lainie181818]

Hi, I had my surgery at St Vincents Hospital 17 months ago. It was not a great experience but I don't know if AN surgery would have been better anywhere else. The Hospital is located in one of LA's worst areas so if you are from out of town, family members are limited where they can go outside of the hospital. Most of the nursing staff were pleasant but few spoke good English. I remember all of the time I was in ICU a nurse had a really bad hacking cough, and I was concerned about "catching something" The cafeteria had really good food, which was good for my husband. St Vincents is across the street from HEI so the Dr's visited regularly. Conversely Cedars is in Beverly hills so the cost of a Hotel room would be very expensive. I live in Redondo Beach, which is about 20 odd miles from both hospitals, so my husband drove daily to see me. I am sure you will get different opinions, I am just sharing mine. Fortunately I did not have any complications and was sent home on day 5. I moved house 3 weeks after my surgery, which was the craziest thing I have ever done. I do not recommend any important upheavlels during the recovery period, just lots of rest and someone to look after you. I seem to remember that my first visit back to the hospital was 2 weeks after surgery, to have the sutures removed. The only way to descrbe the feeling of being a passenger in a car was that my head felt like a bowl of goldfish bobbing around. Did anyone else relate to that feeling? Anyway feel free to email me if you need anymore info. Who is Your Dr?
Good luck in your decision making, and I am sure you will get a lot of support from this website.
Lainie.

[Desilu]

Hi,

I had surgery at St. Vincent's about 2 years ago and went back again last year for my one year check up. Lainie was correct by saying that St. Vincent's is not in the best area but I went there because I heard that the doctors out there were the best!

One point that I would like to mention is that St. Vincent's hospital reserves the entire 6th floor of the hospital for Acoustic Neuroma patients. I felt reassured to know that the nurses on that floor deal with this type of situation each and every day as opposed to going somewhere else where nurses are switched around to every department of the hospital.

I guess if you really want this doctor to do your surgery, you will have to go where he wants you to go, unless you can some how persuade him to change his mind. Please keep us posted on the final decision of where your surgery will be.  I wish you the best!  Ann

[bpham]

Thank you all for replying.

My doctor is Rick Friedman.  Have you heard anything about him?  From the HEI website he seems to be quite involved with AN surgery and other related things.  He is quite friendly, accessible and confident.  He made the operation of removing the tumor sounds like a minor thing (I guess to him but not to us) and that kind of giving me some ease about the whole ordeal.  He told me that this is the best place in the world for this kind of thing and I'm in good hands.

However, he wants to go to Cedars Sinai but the surgery advisor wants to keep the business here at St. Vincent (from what I'm reading...), therefore I'm unsure as to what to do.

You both have good points and I was aware about that too, Cedars seems to be a nice facility but do not know whether they have all of the right personnel to handle this particular operations as well as St. Vincent, however, Lainie experiences kind of scaring me a little since how could they allow a nurse with a bad cough be around people who just had a major head surgery?  But, I know that St. Vincent has been the place for this type of surgery in the last several years...so I'm not sure what to do...Should I leave it to the Doctor who knows best???  I'm leaning toward Cedars...

Thanks for any input.

[Mark]

I'll offer my 2 cents on the St Vincent's vs. Cedars Sinai issue based on my familiarity with both as someone who has been in the hospital supply business for a while ( longer than I care to admit  )

First of all, The rubber meets the road with the surgical team doing the procedure. A team which has performed a 1000 such surgeries will probably have a better outcome in a small rural hospital than a team that has done 10 who uses a state of the art OR in a world class hospital. Friedman is clearly a top practioner of this type of surgery and that would be my biggest factor.

That being said, Cedars is a very highly regarded hospital and very well funded, thus the facilities and equipment tend to be top notch. Keep in mind that most LA celebrities end up in cedars as their "hospital of choice", so there is a better chance of autographs  . St Vincents, as was noted previously, is in a not so great part of LA and is a middle of the road community hospital that is not exceptional other than its association with HEI, which is really a significant cash cow for them.

I would take surgery at cedars with an HEI doc over St Vincents anyday.

Mark

[Jeff]

Hi,
I have had two surgeries performed by Dr. Friedman at St. Vincent. My brother also had surgery at an LA Kaiser hospital performed by Dr. Brackmann.

I don't know what Dr. Friedman is planning, but it seems that they have a pretty efficient system at St. Vincent. The doctors make their rounds between surgeries. I know that my brother didn't see Dr. Brackmann as much as I saw Dr. Friedman. I assume that it was because my brother wasn't at St. Vincent. I don't really know. Let me know if I can help.
Jeff

[Laurie]

I had my surgery at St. Vincent in july 2004.  Dr. Rick Friedman did the surgery.  Fantastic care there.  Everyone was wonderful and could not be more caring.  I had to fly to the west coast and stay two weeks and I know I made the best choice.  I could have gone to John's Hopkin's which is only and hour away.  It is rating one of the #1 hospital's in the USA, but House was the best for me.
They do so many of these surgeries and Dr. Rick and all the other Dr's and staff was OUTSTANDING!!  My sister in law had the same Dr's six month before me and she did her homework.  We are both fine, deaf in one ear, but no other problems.  I have even had a BAHA implant, but that was done at John's Hopkins.  I only have wonderful things to say about House and Dr. Friedman and the staff!! : :

[bpham]

Well, it turns out that my insurance approves the surgery at Cedars.  I'm not sure what is better or worse but at least Dr. Friedman and Dr. Schwartz are my surgeons.  I'll ask them about the reasons to have it there and also the accessibility of them after the surgery, especially the internal Doctor who will be taking care of me in the ICU.

Any other advise or suggestion is appreciated.

Thanks all.