Duke University Hospital

This has been the worst experience of my life. I am just shy of brain surgery (one week) and Duke hospital should be sued for lack of care and follow up. 1^st the nurse to my nuerosurgeon stopped taking my calls 2 weeks before surgery and stopped answering my emails a week before surgery. No one explained any of the medications I would be on or the side effects… I am on fucking Keppra. No one has called in a week to check on me to see if I am okay (which I am not) can’t sleep or maintain my body temp. I knew I would have to deal with pain but not such poor service and lack of caring. Please, please go anywhere else but Duke for any major surgery like brain surgery… they may have the latest technology but that means little if you don’t survive their lack of after care.

my daughter hurt her knee and was seen by Dr. Toth at Duke Sports Sciences Institute!
this is one smart and kind doctor.
she delivered information that was concise.
can i give her 10STARS!!!

Normally I commend Duke on being the best of the 3 area hospitals. Wake is a disaster and Rex is ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ at best.
However…
My story of utter NEGLIGENCE:
I was brought in, left in a room to dehydrate and piss myself. I didn’t piss myself, but I would have if I lacked the control. 5 hours had gone by and no one assisted me to the rest room nor gave me fluids. I was admitted with dehydration! Although I had been brought to the room in a wheelchair, I had to walk myself (since no one helped me) to the bathroom across the hall. The toilet was a cesspool! Feces splattered everywhere as if someone had expelled their first blast of a hearty enema or potent laxative.
When they finally came in with a diagnosis, the paper simply reiterated what we discussed in triage (using it as a diagnosis without tests!) and they even wrote on the paper «maybe» before the diagnosis. WTF is maybe? I came in with «maybe», you assholes. How about a positive fucking diagnosis?
Don’t worry, there’s more.
While I lied there shaking and dehydrated as all hell they handed me that paper and said, «So we’re discharging you and moving you back to the waiting room. We need the room.»
I sat in the waiting room shaking and dizzy from lack of fluids, holding a piece of paper that said absolutely nothing about the outcome of my visit, and in the midst of waiting for a ride home no one seemed to notice my state of emergency.
I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and got hit with a dizzy spell. They immediately rushed over and helped me to a place to lie down. Why couldn’t the hospital put the same care into their patient?
But of course, I still get the multi-​hundred dollar bill from the hospital.
Listen, assholes. It’s about care not money. But since money is involved, let’s talk business, you amateurs. If I go into a fancy hotel and spend $ 200 on a room… Don’t you think I’d be pissed if my room service never showed up? If I arrived and the room was ill-​stocked, upside down, and the toilet filled with human feces? I’d certainly complain to the management and they would have granted me free services for quite a while.
I’d love to ask for free services, but right now I don’t feel like I can trust my hospital anymore. You’ll probably bring me in and give me cancer. Shit heads.
I’m NOT saying don’t ever go to Duke. As I said, it’s the best of the 3 hospitals in the area. The other two will likely let you die. But as of this week, Duke is on my shit list. Whomever was on staff on Tuesday… You are miserably disgraceful.
While I fully enjoyed the lack of attention and treatment, I have to also thank you for making me sit through an intern EMT’s Q&A session for his school class. Yippie. I came in for medical help, I wound up being a subject for a student and never actually worked with any doctors. Lovely.
Here’s a note: If you want to be a doctor, you have to do the work. Your degree doesn’t make you a doctor. Your experience and hard work does.
#losers

I cannot believe that doctors at such a prestigious hospital keep their patients waiting so long. We arrived at 1045 for an 1110 appointment and it is now 1230 and still have not been seen??? Gosh forbids that you do not stand at the right sign to check in at clinic 2B nephrology. These woman snap at the patients because they stand on the other side of a post to check in or out.

This hospital has been fantastic. Usually night shift nurses are hardly ever there and sometimes I’ve experienced rude nighttime staff at other hospitals.
Not here.
My nurses have been wonderful on day shift and night shift. I never have to wait too long for help when calling for it.
If I ever need another procedure, I don’t care where we are living, I may insist on coming here again,!

Before you or your loved one decides to go to this hospital — Emergency or otherwise, make sure you are aware of what status they decide to give you. If you are an «admitted patient» your insurance will cover all your costs. If they give you a «under observation» status — insurance, especially medicare will not cover most of your costs and in the case of my 89 year old father, because of how the obnoxious and inconsiderate staff was by giving him an «under observation» status, medicare would not cover further costs associated with having to go to a rehabilitation facility. ASK QUESTIONS and if they do not admit you try to go somewhere that will!

The folks in the Emergency Department are incredible, among the best I’ve seen, however once I was admitted it went downhill from there. The service to which I was admitted forgot about me for three days and it was only when my wife insisted they call the physician supposedly in charge of my care that they did so. Once she came to my room she did apologize for the oversight and told me that after reviewing my chart she felt there was no need for me to remain in the hospital! Within a few hours I was out of there and glad of it!

One of the top hospitals in the country, I’ve had alot of experience here with my sick mother and myself. Communication between doctors is excellent and the level of care is not to be beat. Children’s hospital is new and amazing as well. Parking g is available and valet service is there if you don’t want to mess with it.

All I can say about Dukes system is it sucks. The administration side is atrocious! They screw up bills and then it’s s nightmare to fix. They are less than helpful. If they learned to even have a ‘decent’ admin side I’d give them 5 stars for the doctors and staff. All the doctors I’ve seen over time are friendly, knowledgable and helpful, even with rare issues.

I want to tell about a bad experience I had at Duke.
I was in overnight for a procedure. It’s hard to sleep (I missed dinner and it’s noisy –but that’s not the issue here). At 3 AM, I stepped out of my room and noticed a metal box affixed to the wall next to my door. Inside was a binder with my medical information. Every room has a similar box with the patient’s medical information.
I opened the box and was looking at my file when suddenly the file was grabbed and tugged out of my hand by the chief nurse on my floor. My own medical info! Apparently I need a doctor’s approval to read my file.
I can’t tell you exactly what was in this top secret file, because I wasn’t permitted to read it. I did see some anaesthesia forms I had signed. There was quite a bit more about the reasons for the procedure I had had earlier in the day, and who knows what else.
The nurse removed the file to some unknown place, presumably the nurse’s station.
I am not complaining about the nurse’s rudeness. Such people are in every institution.
I am unhappy because patient safety was compromised and even though I went through channels, Duke allowed patient safety to be secondary. I should say that I complained to the doctor on duty and he backed up the nurse, and I complained to the patient advocacy hotline and they were completely unresponsive.
Endangering patients is a serious charge. How was patient safety compromised?
1. The file is placed in a box next to the room for a good reason. In an emergency, medical personnel can quickly access details about a case. When the nurse stashes the file in some unknown place, time has to be wasted tracking down the missing file. In fact, any person passing through the hall can easily look at anyone’s file. The boxes are not locked. Privacy is considered much less important than ease of access to vital data. So how absurd to enforce privacy rules against the patient himself.
2. If the patient can’t see his own file, he remains ignorant about his own treatment. This can be dangerous in any number of ways. For instance, we can’t see whether our medical history has been correctly transcribed.
In my case, it did indeed turn out that the file contained an ambiguity which was incorrectly interpreted by the nurse. My file said that I took a «25 mg of m… ½ daily.» It was unclear whether this meant ½ of a 50 mg tablet, or half of a 25 mg tablet. The latter was true, but the morning nurse assumed that the chart was right rather than the patient. This could easily have led to the wrong dosage being administered.
Duke was uninterested in addressing these concerns even though it is clear to me that patient safety has clearly taken a back seat — and for what reason? To prevent a patient from reading his own chart? Disgraceful.
Allow me to say — despite the above complaint, I consider myself very lucky to have been treated at Duke by an outstanding doctor, and this complaint in no way reflects on him or his excellent team. The ONLY reason I am making these complaints is to move Duke to correct this one issue which involves serious jeopardy to the safety of Duke’s patients.

I want to remind people that an emergency room is for emergencies. part of the problem with emergency rooms is, people go when it is not an emergency. head colds, ankle sprains and things of that nature are not a reason to go to an emergency room. If you are not in excruciating (pain is the 5^th vital sign) pain or at risk of death, you stay out of the E.R. I do not live in NC, but in NYC. You complain about Duke, come to NYC where you will learn what it is to get treated like dirt. On that note, I have been to over 13 hospitals (finally diagnosed at Duke) and they have been my best experience thus far. I love the Valet at the E. R, we have nothing like this back home.

Well, let’s see. I’m currently sitting in the Emergency Department, and have been since 5 (it’s now 9:30) with my fiancé and his broken tailbone. None of the narcotic pain medication (ultram, lortab, tylenol3) from our PCP and orthopaedist has helped, and it has been 5 weeks since he has broken it. Read: it should be getting better, not worse. We want more thorough scans to maybe see if it has deviated as well as fractured. Now, I know how long ER waits can be, but when you ask how much longer it will be, the receptionist should not under any circumstances have the balls (excuse my French) to say, and I quote, «It’ll be a while. We have a lot of patients that are more important than you.» Could not believe it, I was completely taken aback.
Also, I understand, maybe they’re very backed up, maybe the receptionist is having a bad day. Sure. But some of the staff should be polite, and none of the people behind the desk have been. Such a shame since all the nurses/​doctors that have come out to chat with other patients have seemed very attentive and nice.
Another note, huge waiting area, metal detector at entrance, fairly comfy chairs, bookshelf, magazines, 3 or 4 TVs throughout, with various charging stations for your phone/​iPad/​whathaveyou.
So here I sit, chewing the cheap rubber chair fabric to settle my stomach grumbling, trying to keep my cool with a severely in pain fiancé who has a death grip on my arm (which is now asleep), and waiting to be seen. All this time? Always.
Update: there is a man that has been (violently) throwing up for a couple hours now, in and out of the bathroom every 20 – 30 minutes. Got here about an hour after we did, still sitting there.
Update #2: Coming up on 12:30 AM. Still sitting in the waiting area. Vital signs have been taken.

First, find out where you need to park beforehand. I parked at what seemed a convenient area, but it wasn’t so I got a lot of unnecessary exercise in.
The cafeteria is pretty basic, but they have fresh, hot food, salads and other eat-​in & take-​out options.
The courtyards are pretty and not very busy if you need some fresh air.
The staff I dealt with were very friendly and helpful since I am directionally-​challenged.
The nurses and aides that were assisting my cousin during his stay were very informative, professional and courteous.
I hope I don’t have to go back.

Wonderful surgery and experience, when I truly was feeling my worst! Such effective, and compassionate nursing staff and providers! As much as I hate being a patient, I will be a patient at Duke any day! Duke Hospital and O.R. staff ROCKED MY SOCKS OFF! … And that’s hard to do!

Horrible billing practices.

Brought my mom to ER, 14 hours later we are still here, I know ER’s can be crazy but really? Got here at 1 pm it’s now 3 am and we were told just a little longer? What? I’m beyond frustrated to say the least! The good thing is that she was seen.

Duke has been a great hospital.
It is a bit of a maze at first but after a few trips you’ll get the layout.
The ER is typical for any ER. You get lucky with times you end up going in. They have a metal detector and guards so there’s that odd feeling but at least it’s there. (Rather have it and not need it than the other way)
Parking can be tricky try to arrive 15 min ahead to get it. They do have valet and it’s not that expensive. Everyone I’ve had contact with has been very helpful.

(D.U.H. Emergency) Family member was told to come here for CT scan by Duke Urgent care. Had blood test and xray but they never got around to CT. Waited over 8 hours. At that point they said they couldn’t guarantee seeing anyone for 2 – 3 more hours. We left and went elsewhere. Run like a third world clinic. Dangerously backed up and badly run. Do not come here and expect good service.

Very friendly staff, however, they talked about Super Bowl and their upcoming weekend and then knocked on our down. They stood there for 15 minutes with no interaction about nursing things. Just seems like they can talk later and treat first. Still better than UNC!!!

I am sitting at Duke medical care Durham right now for 2 hours and there is no help available. my daughter had got nail scratch in her eye and it is clearly visible. Nobody attended her and asked to just wait for the turn, BTW we went into the emergency.
I am feeling pissed and frustrated, she might loose vision or something else may happen but for them it doesn’t matter.
even though it’s a injury in the eye, they suggested to wait for pediatric so that he can refer then to eye doctor. what a shame on medical system here

Great hospital with great care. There is no lack of attention here if you are sick. Now I know why this hospital is rated one of the best in the country.

I was in Duke cardiac unit for one week after surgery. The doctors are excellent, but Except for 2 male nurses, I have never had such poor care. Problems were totally ignored, questions never answered, did not help me when I needed it and one nurse aid — she should never be allowed near patients she has such a spiteful streak. I was a nurse for years and know that patient care should be far better. Many medical professionals I k now have all stated yes we have heard about the poor nursing care at Duke.

Having been to 2 other area hospitals I can tell you that Duke is hands down the best. After my #1squeezes surgery was botched up at another hospital he was treated here. He had his following surgery and chemotherapy here and he is alive today because of his care here. I am currently here for a joint replacement. I had this done to my other knee 6 years previously. This time is a much better experience as they have new pain control methods. Dr Bologesi is the absolute best. Excellent surgeon and bedside manner. Rooms are all private and clean. Now they only change your bed linen is visibly soiled or requested. After my surgery I had a lunch tray but they forgot me at dinner. I asked about it around 7pm and all they. could offer was a cold turkey sandwich. That is the only negative thing that I can put this review.

Great hospital! Attentive staff and they seem to love what they do. I didn’t get much of an attitude anywhere while visiting.
I’ve gotten food from the cafeteria once. I got a big salad and a slice of pizza. The salad was pretty tasty and the supreme pizza was okay. There’s tons of topping for a salad including real bacon, pitted olives, crotons, chopped boiled eggs, ken’s dressings, pasta salad, chick peas, etc.
My mom’s doctor did an excellent job on her first major surgery. I’m most thankful to still have her in this world! Duke is the place to go for any serious health concern.
*Gift shop, big lobby on first floor, Starbucks