The following Kaiser Permanente horror story arrived in our inbox a few days ago. This unfortunate patient has been put through hell for over a year without so much as an apology, and — you guessed it — as usual the medical records do not reflect the truth of what occurred. Meanwhile, in our area the semiannual bombardment of Thrive ads has begun, to coincide with upcoming open enrollment. This always leaves us wanting to throw things at our television, so to make ourselves feel better we have created a new Video page.
Complaint against Dr. Matthew James Sherman
Alleged mistakes by Dr. Matthew James Sherman have made life a living hell for one patient
In 2008, through my PCP, I was referred to Dr. Sherman, a colon rectal surgeon, for treatment of anal fissure. After a year of unsuccessful medication, the doctor performed anal sphincterotomy in Dec 2009. However, instead of getting better, my fissure got worse. I developed a large anal skin tag protrusion from my rectum. The doctor then persuaded me to have another repair. Reluctantly, I agreed to the surgery which was deemed to be minor and it was done at Kaiser Sand Canyon on January 12, 2011.
The doctor said following the surgery that he had found a small lump located behind the rectal wall, posterior vaginal wall. Suspecting malignancy, he removed the lump and tissues around it. It was only capsulated infection, negative for malignancy. I was discharged and went home the same day.
On the 5th day after the surgery, I noticed blood oozing from my vagina. I wrote an email to Dr. Sherman, questioning about the bleeding. He refused to accept the responsibility, telling me it was a GYN problem, and I should have sought advice from the GYN department. On the 6th day, more emails were sent with information about small stool particles and gas passing through my vagina. The doctor then asked me to come back to his office for reevaluation. After speculum examination he agreed that perforation was present. I was then sent to the OR at Kaiser Lakeview Hospital on January 18th for repair. Dr. Sherman removed the rectal suture and evacuated a large amount of blood collected where the cyst was cut. He told me after the surgery that he had tried to patch my vaginal mucosa, but vaginal rectal fistula was created from the hematoma pressure. However, he failed to identify the source of hemorrhage. I was sent home after spending one night in observation. I noticed upon discharge that I still bled a little but I was assured by the doctor that the bleeding would stop.
On January 24th, the bleeding from my vagina intensified and 911 was called. I was taken to Fountain Valley Hospital ER for stabilization, and then transferred to Kaiser Lakeview Hospital. The intense pain, the profuse bleeding and the discomfort of having bowel movements became unbearable. I requested to have diverting colostomy, hoping that the repair would have a better chance of success.
Dr. Sherman performed another repair. He stated he found an active blood vessel causing the hemorrhage and tied it to stop the bleeding. When I recovered from the surgery, I found out I had had ileostomy instead and was advised that ileostomy was easier to perform in my case. I stayed in the hospital for 12 days because of ileus, a complication from the surgery. At this point, I did not wish to continue treatment with Dr. Sherman and requested referral to another surgeon who, I hoped, could fix my problem. I was referred to Dr. Abbas at Kaiser Sunset. While waiting for an appointment with Dr. Abbas, I was referred to another local colon rectal surgeon, Dr. Henry Hwu for another opinion. After the examination, he stated he didn’t see the fistula but insisted that I had colon cancer. He suggested that I should have another colonoscopy and more tissues should be dissected for testing. I felt so distressed and angry. He had no manner to say at my face that I had cancer without any lab result. Therefore, I refused all his suggestions and did not allow him to perform any procedures. I saw Dr. Abbas for the first time on April 25th, 2011. After undergoing 3 surgeries done by Dr. Abbas, I became confident that I was in good hands. Finally, my fistula was patched and my ileostomy reversed on January 11, 2012.
For a year, I went through 6 surgeries, suffered abscesses and developed allergy to paste and skin barrier, insomnia, bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. I lost 4-5 months of work. My employer does not have a disability program. Currently, I still have some issues with bowel control and sensation where the fistula was.
Even though Dr. Sherman is a very nice person, he is, as far as I am concerned, professionally incompetent. He overlooked my body size and dissected more than my margin would allow. He did not recognize his mistake and failed to take action when I notified him about the bleeding. He also failed to stop the bleeding and that sent me to the ER for the 3rd time.
His indecision and incompetency have caused me so much pain and emotional distress along with physical suffering and financial damage.
I was born with an ‘anomoly of limb’ my muscles in both my arms and wrists are strung so tight I cannot rotate my wrists. My left arm and hand are 50% worse than my right side rendering the left side of my body useless. I have had trouble my entire life with simple everyday tasks it is painful or just downright impossible for me to do. Some of these tasks include opening bottles of any sort, trouble getting shampoo or conditioner out of the tube, trouble recieving change from cashier’s ( my hand will NOT rotate flat palm side up), etc. Now I am 20 years of age and I have been simply living with this condition it never really bothered me. But it is becoming apparent to me that in the last three months my rotation has been getting worse. It has become more painful within the last two months than I have ever experienced. I have trouble even holding my iPhone up because of the strain it puts on my wrists. Simple everyday things are becoming so difficult for me. Now, I noticed this was going to be the result of the increasing difficulty I was already having about a month ago I made an appointment with my doctor to have this evaluated in an urgent type manner. The doctor completely blew me off and told me point blank the people that run that department will ONLY see me if I have something broken, that my urgency was actually nowhere near ‘urgent’ enough for them to evaluate my situation. I asked the doctor several times explaining to him my situation that my hands are essentially becoming useless to me and he told me I had to make an appointment with orthopedics ( which I did and is a month away from my initial doctors visit). Does the fact that I am losing functionality in my hands mean anything to Kaiser? Do they even care? If I do end up losing this functionality is there somewhere legitimate I can take my formal complaint?
Hi Bailey,
Sometimes if you call the advice nurse she can get you an appointment sooner. If that doesn’t work you can ask to speak to the head of the department and explain your issues, and hope that he or she will intervene on your behalf.
If none of that works you can call the Department of Managed Health Care to ask about your options.
If you want more timely appointments and concern for urgent issues in the future, your best bet is to change health plans.
Another visit from KP’s PR goons.
Click the image to make it larger.
Sorry to hear Mr. Bailey that you have to go through this. Knowing Kaiser, I have a piece of advice and some insight about the conditions.
Generally chronic conditions are dealt with outpatient work up, however if any of the chronic condition becomes acute, that needs more acute and prompt work up .
An Appointment of one month is not acceptable as What I see with the Kaiser is they have become Money crazy and they stretched too thin and unable to provide adequate care for the members who already paid for the insurance premium and expecting a good service.
There are many folds that prevent Kaiser from Hiring some good and caring physicians namely
1) They work their butt out with no incentive
2) Many Departments are so dysfunctional everyone want to climb the ladder and only way to do so is pointing fingers at others and many physicians are tired of these antiques and they just come and work for books and not show any empathy towards patient’s feelings.
3) There are many physicians are working without adequate time off and long hours. At the end, they all are tired and many are making mistakes some are deadly.
4) many nurses are working outside Kaiser and when they come to work in Kaiser, they are already tired and avoid doing any extra to help the patient.
In your case, crooks like Kaiser system needs to be dealt with the loopholes in the system. In my opinion, you should go to an Emergency room and tell them that you were doing fine and this happen suddenly which make the presentation more acute and they are obliged to do some work up, possibly MRI and nerve conduction studies. You may have a nerve impingement that may need urgent surgical release ( just a thought).
Good luck and if the emergency room turned down, goto a non Kaiser emergency room and have them directly send to a Kaiser Hospital. This is a loophole in the Kaiser system to bypass the red tape. ( make sure that you don’t pay anything more than what you pay to Kaiser as co- pay if you have one).
Make sure to read my second paragraph