Mt. Sinai vs. Cornell for Out-Patient Surgery

I just had my third surgery in about a year. The first two surgeries were with Dr. Gary Goldman at Cornell Hospital here in New York City. The last one was with Dr. Rudy Segna at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

I love Dr. Segna and he performed my surgery to take out my ovary much much more quickly than I think Dr. Goldman would have been able to do. In fact, for the first time after a surgery I did not suffer from overwhelming nausea. Dr. Segna was able to perform the surgery in about 35 minutes. And the medical team, including the anaesthesiologist, actually listened to me when I told them about surgical medicines that had seemed to work for me in the past and things that were not so good for me. My pre-surgical experience at Mt. Sinai was as good if not better then my past experiences at Cornell.

My post-op experience was not as good at Mt. Sinai as it was at Cornell. I believe that Cornell has a higher ratio of nurses to patients in the recovery room. Also, I do not believe that children who have just had surgery recover in the same room as adults at Cornell. Therefore, it is more quiet and less stressful and easier to convalesce at Cornell. At Mt. Sinai, there were several children in the recovery room and they were all crying and screaming. It was very distressing. On one level, I felt terrible for the kids and felt as if I was taking on some of their pain through osmosis. On the other hand, when you are feeling sick and weak yourself, silence is so important to help you recover and to reduce your stress levels. I did not have a silent experience AT ALL at Mt. Sinai post-surgery.

Finally, at Mt. Sinai an old man who had just came out of some sort of plastic surgery did not wake up in the post-op room. They tried to revive him and could not. I got to see all of this, because nobody thought to block my view. It seems he had a stroke on the operating table. I would have thought this is something they might have detected while he was still in the operating room, not in post-op. Because this was an emergency, all the nurses and doctors were attending to the poor old man who was essentially in the coma, so I ended up getting out of recovery many hours later than I wanted to.

All in all, the post-op experience at Mt. Sinai was VERY stressful and not very pleasant. My nurses met well, but they were overworked. I am sure there are much worse post-op units in New York City. But I hope to never experience them!

If I were to do it all over again I would either ask Dr. Segna if he could operate on my at Cornell (somehow I doubt this would be possible) or I would request a private recovery room at Mt. Sinai (also, I somehow doubt this would be possible). Hopefully, I will not face this problem in the future and I will remain HEALTHY!