John T Holder ,MD

We were referred here, I think because the Overlake name impressed someone. Don’t be impressed. The Overlake Cardiology Clinic is the most ghetto doctor’s office we’ve been to in a long time.
My husband had major open-​heart surgery at UW Medical Center last week. We got out of the hospital yesterday after 6 days. They wanted us to follow up today to adjust the new medication and I wanted us to stay on the Eastside because it’s so much closer.
If it was a single-​story building, you’d swear you were in a trailer. The whole place is CARPETED… OK, I can see that in a waiting room, but how on earth do you keep carpeted exam and procedure rooms clean? You don’t. Even the RESTROOM is carpeted… I think that’s disgusting in a home, never mind in a doctor’s office! How many years of pee splashes into carpet are acceptable? Really?
The room was cramped and it was clear that none of the hard surfaces are wiped down regularly. The hand-​washing sink was BONE DRY, and the soap dispenser, plain old Softsoap, looked undisturbed. There was a cotton ball with blood on it discarded on the floor, clearly visible. WTF?
The nurse came in, all «ma’am» and «sir» — that’s OK once, but unless you are three years old, you do not need to start or end each of your sentences with that word. I understand when you are speaking to me. She set up and ran an EKG, putting the sensor stickies on John with her bare hands (no gloves) without cleaning the sites first with an alcohol prep pad.
The walls in this clinic are so thin that HIPPA is a complete joke. You can hear ALL of the conversation in the exam room next to you. (This becomes more important in just a moment).
My husband has a long incision over the sternum bone, which they cut open to access his heart; he also has two large surgical-​drain incisions, several tiny ones through which instruments were passed, a central-​line incision on his neck, and more IV– and blood draw-​puncture wounds than I care to think about. These incisions are NOT yet healed and since he’s a diabetic, there’s an especially high risk of infection.
Dr. Holder finished up in the exam room next to us, wished them a good day, walked out, entered our exam room without even knocking, and offered to shake my husband’s hand. John pretended not to notice, looking him in the eye instead. The doctor proceeded to ask a ton of health-​history questions, the vast majority answered on the intake paperwork I’d just filled out. Dr. Holder is somewhat hard of hearing, and my husband, not feeling well at all after being kept waiting for 45 minutes (we were 10 minutes early), started saying «Fine» or «OK» after the doctor would ask him to repeat his initial longish, detailed answer.
Here’s the kicker though (and the reason we’re going to report him to the Health Department). Dr. Holder didn’t wash his hands before he went to examine my husband. He didn’t put on gloves. He didn’t even use sanitizer gel. I stopped him by saying, «I don’t mean any disrespect, but you need to wash your hands first».
Dr. Holder replied, «We have facilities outside the rooms, and I used it before I came in.» This was a direct and obvious LIE. We didn’t hear him run water, use a paper towel; we didn’t see his wet hands and said paper towel; we didn’t see him rubbing sanitizer gel, nor did we hear him activate the dispenser. He then said, «You’re right, you shouldn’t let anyone touch him without washing their hands first.» He stepped out of the room, KA-​CHUNK got some hand sanitizer gel, and came into the room rubbing it all over his hands. The alcohol vapors were overwhelming… how did we miss the ones he’d presumably created mere minutes before?
He examined my husband, again, without gloves, something that ABSOLUTELY would not have happened at UW. He made all sorts of pronouncements about my husband’s condition, some correct and some incorrect. He didn’t recognize the manufacturer of John’s mechanical aortic valve, ATS Medical, maker of the second-​most popular replacement valve. He went to use his stethoscope on John: I raised my eyebrows and pointed to the sink; glaring at me, he went back into the hallway, got some hand-​sanitizer gel to rub on the stethoscope, drying it off on a paper towel before continuing.
In the end, his demeanor was mostly kindly, but he is past the prime of his career (he is 69). His clinic is shoddy and unsanitary. He is hard enough of hearing that I don’t see how his stethoscope work will be as accurate as that of someone with full hearing function. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near me to do surgery, and given that a lot of cardiology is life or death, we are crystal-​clear that he is not even going to get the chance to TALK to us again. We’re going back to the UW system where hand-​washing, gloves, gel in/​gel out, equipment and room cleaning procedures are all clear, posted, and followed without a second thought as they should be!