Victor Prieto, MD

This review is for Dr Prieto’s PA — Bonita — she saw me as a same-​day last minute squeeze — and was kind, courteous, warm and I enjoyed our visit very much. She is knowledgeable, smart and I was very happy with the results of our visit. I would be happy to see her again in case I have another knee injury as a preliminary step to seeing Dr Prieto (in this case — I didn’t need to do so). Keep up the good work, Bonita!

Dr Prieto saved me twice from surgey to my shoulder and knee

Dr. Prieto is a good doctor, but needs better, pleasant staff to help and deal with customers. Some staff just look and act miserable.

These guys are flippant and don’t care to know what’s wrong with you. It seems their standard response is, ‘well, you’re not going to have surgery for this pain, are you?’- so they won’t order an MRI. I had a bike accident, broke a bone in my sacrum, and they just explained to me the length of time it would take to heal– said that’s all there would be to it, might need a bit of PT, but probably wouldn’t have to come back in at all. Instead, 4 years later, my back is still f’ed up– but not enough for surgery, so, they don’t care. After a bike accident bad enough to break a bone in my back, they saw no need to do an MRI to see what soft tissue damage may have been done (of course, as a healthy youngish woman, I didn’t think to insist on it– trusted them). A year later I was back in there in a lot of pain… again, the surgery line («you’re not going to risk surgery for this, are you?»), so no MRI ordered, told me there was no way to know if the pain was the result of the bike injury, or just being older and sitting at a desk all day… blah, blah, blah… off to PT I went. So, yah, don’t be fooled by all of the fancy plaques and celebrity pictures on the walls. What good is the knowledge/​expertise, if you’re not willing to apply it to us normal folks– Prieto and sidekick, Don? I’d like to know why my back still f’ing hurts despite being in shape, not being overweight, and never having back issues before my back accident! For what it’s worth, I also got overbilled… they fixed the mistake, but that was irritating, too. Unfortunately, nobody knows what it’s like to have a bad back until it’s too late… nobody knows to insist on an MRI so that you know what you’re looking at, until it’s too late. (I’m sure I could’ve had it covered after the bike accident, but now nobody wants to bother with it… ‘you’re not going to have surgery, are you?’)

I can’t possibly say enough bad things about this office and doctor. As I sit here, paying my bill to them six months later I am again angered by dr prieto’s arrogance and and the offices inability to understand the issues.
1. I popped something in my lower leg while on vacation in Japan. It hurt immediately, extended to my ankle and calf and never stopped hurting over the course of the next year.
2. After many visits to my primary care doctor it was recommended that I get an mri and see dr. Prieto.
3. I visit doctor prieto and he spends most of the visit being interrupted by a phone call. The time that he did spend with me was scattered and a bit hectic. He listened to about half of my story, had me hop up on the bed, pushed on my leg a few times and decided that I had a back issue. When I asked how we could fix it he said“well is it bad enough for surgery?” So of course I was in disagreement that pain was referred from my back as my leg had physically popped and then continued to hurt, so when I questioned him, he told me to go to the chiropractor, and if that didn’t work, he would write me an mri. He also recommended that I lose weight, to which (I was five pounds overweight) I was like «um, I wasn’t overweight when my leg popped!»
4. My chiropractor looked at me and laughed and said, «you don’t have a back issue».
5. I called for the Mir and found that prieto wrote the Mri for my back.
6. When I called back his office gave me a lecture on referred pain (leg popped, leg hurt., nothing was referred), insisted I now get a $ 400 x-​Ray, which they then wrote for my ankle, then they finally agreed to get me an mri. So they wrote that prescription for my knee. Finally, finally, finally wrote me an mri for my lower leg.
7. I took my Mri and ran to a real doctor who listened to my story, diagnosed me compartment syndrome, ran the tests and confirmed… I have compartment sydrome. Which btw, even webmd could figure out…
8. Now I’m paying my bill and I’m looking at the fact that prieto charged me for sciatica, which I just looked up and I have none (absolutely zero) of the symptoms.

It’s nearly 7 years after my surgery and my shoulder is doing spectacularly well. Dr. Prieto is a hero to me.

This doc rocks! I had a Mumford Procedure/​Cuff Repair of my right shoulder. 12 days after the surgery I am on my spinning bike. My shoulder is healing amazingly well, very little pain. Very happy.

I received several cortisone shots from this doctor and finally allowed him to replace my right knee… here is what happened:
operative right knee is still in terrible pain seven months after surgery. Prieto offered no explanations for this
2.i was hospitalized for 10 days at st Francis hospital in sf and rarely saw the doctor:
3.i was given morphine but nothing for constipation, no shower and a nurse who could not put an Iv in my arm after four stabs, gave up, walked out and left the needle in my arm
4 prieto did not check on any of this, when I left the hospital, I took laxatives since neither prieto or the so called pain management doctor instructed me about tapering off morphine. I became so sick and weak that my sister had to call prieto to get him to re hospitalize me
5. When I finally got to, the hospital, prieto had not phoned in-​orders (seven hours later) and I was taken from floor to floor as no one had received instructions from
that point my blood pressure was extremely low, my electrolytes were completely out of balance and I had to insist that staff call prieto to, get orders for me.
6 I got my records that prieto had written stating that my sister had been belligerent
When in fact she saved my life.
There are no words I can
use to express my profound disappointment with his services.
By the way, prieto Alwayskept me waiting 30 minutes to one hour
I am now going to see another surgeon to find out what is wrong with the knee prieto operated on,
Caveat emptor!!!

I have a soft spot for Prieto for what he did with my mangled ankle a few years back, so when I was having intense and persistent shoulder pain after a workout with my husband, I went immediate to him. Got into an appt with no problem (like called same day and explained and he saw me). His initial diagnosis just from testing me was EXACTLY what the mri showed: SLAP tear but also long head biceps issue. I had 2 cortisone shots done by him and Don, his PA and I felt better for a while.
I ultimately went with another doctor for the surgery (based on the fact that this other guy is the Giants team doc and does 4 shoulders a week) and more based on the fact that scheduling wise, it just fit in better. I hands down would recommend Prieto and I felt actually guilty going to someone else… I mean honestly, if you would have seen the shape my ankle was in, and what this man was able to do with it, I trust him as a surgeon implicitly.
Couple of points on his bedside manner: Love the guy, he’s a bit quirky (but some of the worlds best surgeons are. I mean, they cut people open, right?), but I’ve never felt rushed with him or pressured into signing right into surgery like I did with another, very well respected surgeon.
Hopefully I made the right choice in the doc I ended up with, as my gut told me to go with Prieto, but so far, so good.
Oh, and the ankle? 100% fine. Like no issues whatsoever sine he repaired me in Nov 2011. Can run, can kick the soccer ball around, can wear high heels, and that ankle feels no different than the other, screws and all.

Don’t go if your time is at all valuable. I have had 2 appts with Dr. Prieto, both scheduled for morning, so would expect to be seen without much delay but this was NOT the case.
The first appt I waited an hour after the scheduled time before being seen. Have to say I was underwhelmed by the Dr’s demeanor. When describing my knee anatomy he starts writing on the tissue paper we sit on on the exam table… I offered real paper and he declined. He gave me the tissue paper after (!) He said there would be 3 reasons to do an MRI — when a dr is clueless, when the patient wants to spend a bunch of money (clearly these are his attempts at humor) or when making a determination for how to treat, Duh! and when I described pain in the other knee he was quite dismissive. Got my MRI done and came back for appt #2 for the results.
Again for this appt which was presumably his first one of the day (9:15) the Dr is running way late. After 40 minutes I ask for status and the office person said he is in surgery and it is running late. 15 min later I hear another office person on phone saying his surgery had been canceled (so then he should be running ahead of schedule, right?) and he is on his way. a third office person tells me he was in surgery, then when clarified there was no surgery, says, well he has other clinics, we are not his only office… to which I say but then he should not be double or triple booked.
They then squeeze someone in ahead of me and at this point it has been over an hour and I say I need to leave and get to a meeting. when asked do I want to reschedule? Um, that would be a NO. If Dr Prieto and his scheduling team have so little respect for their patients time, in addition to his very odd chairside manner, I’d honestly not let this guy near me for surgery. The other reviews sounded so promising, but no doctor is worth much if you can’t see him in a reasonable time period of your appt, when no emergencies happened either time. Thankfully there are many great ortho’s in SF so I’ll be seeing one of them.

The Doc is the the Bomb. He saw my x-​rays of a compound ankle fracture at 11 pm via the Webs this past Friday after I «obliterated» my ankle falling through a faux skylight that I had been lead to believe was a dance platform on a party yacht. He promptly canceled his saturday morning tee time, and elected to have me as his first patient for emergency reconstructive surgery Saturday morning first thing at St. Francis here in SF (where his offices are, and where he is the big cheese ortho). He says it went well, and I have a dozen plus pins and two plates in my ankle. the staff at St. Fracnis are amazing, and I am honored, despite the injury, which is not my fault at all, to have him as the man to put me back together (he hasn’t mastered bionics yet, but I will settle for «as good as before»…). Great bedside manner. I am a pleased patient.

In December of 2011 I tore the meniscus in my knee and was refereed to Dr. Prieto by a friend Clare who had a similar injury a few years back.
After doing a little research I found out he has one of the best reputations in the business.
I met with Dr. Prieto in early January 201. He was professional, respectful and spent time to explain the injury and how he would correct it.
Surgery was performed by him in January 2012. Post surgery the doctor showed my laproscopic picture of my meniscus tear that had tucked itself under a bone (ouch!). Since the surgery I’m doing much better:) Follow up visits are going well. I’ll update this post as to the end results later in the year.
Over all I’m very happy I went with Dr. Prieto.
I might add his staff is awesome: Barry, Lordess, Deloris and Liz:)

The guy must be a superstar. It is very hard to get an appointment with him. Everything that could go wrong, did.
1) I was put on hold for 30 min;
2) They cancelled my appointment twice within less than 24 hours;
3) It has been 1.5 months since I have first tried to get an appointment;
I think I’ll go find someone less popular. It can’t be that there is only one good orthopedic surgeon in San Francisco.

Landed in the ER on a Friday night after a slip and fall that broke my patella in three pieces. Was told I could have surgery Monday morning at 8am. They told me not to eat or drink after midnight on Sunday. Turns out that this was simply a follow up appointment and I would not be having surgery. Was concerned that the ER and sports medicine were not having good communication.
I show up at 8am to learn Dr Prieto was not in and his PA had a baby the night before so no one was available to help me. About 20 mins later I was told Dr Prieto was in surgery and would be available to see me in about 30 mins. About an hour later I was finally in a room with Dr Prieto. Not a great start.
However, after 15 mins with Dr Prieto both me and my girlfriend were sold. He knew what he was talking about and did a good job at setting expectations. He said he could slide me into surgery that afternoon. We cancelled our appointments with two other surgeons and decided to move forward with Dr Prieto.
I’m now 5 days out of surgery and very pleased with the results. Dr Prieto explained the details of the surgery and it’s clear he puts a lot of focus on getting it right. He is aggressively trying to get me back to full health quickly while making sure we don’t overdo it. He communicates well and is easy to work with. I look forward to continuing my rehab with the sports medicine group at the St Francis Memorial and Dr Prieto

I was walking my dog on Market Strreet near Fox Plaza in late 2009. I slipped and as I grabbed a nearby tree to break my fall, my right distal bicep tendon tore almost 90% from the bone. I didn’t know this at the time because there was no swelling or outward indication but I soon found myself in a world of pain. An MRI revealed the damage. If I didn’t have ortho surgery soon, the tendon would retract requiring a much more complicated and uncertain repair.
I chose St. Francis Hospital’s Center for Sports Medicine. Dr. Prieto fitted me into his busy surgical schedule and performed my operation on SUNDAY! I was under general anesthesia for about an hour as he skillfully installed metal anchors and repaired my tendon. I walked out of the hospital that same day. Special thanks to anesthesiologist Dr. Nils Ahlberg and the fine nursing staff.
Dr. Prieto is approachable and personable and he knows his business. My arm is now «good as new» and the incision is virtually invisible. I also wish to thank Don Kemp, Dr. Prieto’s capable PA, for his excellent post-​op care. I was in great hands from start to finish and I couldn’t ask for a better outcome. Thank you, Dr. Prieto!

2011-​02-​01 Doctor Prieto did not try to bill my insurance.
My knee is messed up and this is really bad for me as an athlete.
The first doctor I saw was Dr. Chase of SF General. On 2011-​01-​27, Chase told me that my knee was OK.
Four days later, I went to St. Francis. I was advised to make an appointment with Dr Prieto within 2 days but when I called the office, I could not make an appointment. Instead I was scheduled for Van Pelt who works in that office. Van Pelt told me that the ACL is damaged and that I could get MRI in 3 weeks. Well at least he found that my knee was not fine (it isn’t!).
As an athlete I need to know what I can or cannot do. 3 weeks seems like a long time to wait.
So I asked to switch to Prieto and the receptionist left and returned to tell me that Prieto did not want to try to bill my insurance. So he wont even consider asking his assistant to call my insurance? I don’t like that.
(update: Went to another doctor. Doc thinks ACL is bad, prescribed MRI, and I filled that right away).
I should also add that I showed up about 6 minutes prior to my appointment and the paperwork took more time, so I was not on time — that’s my fault for sure.

In November of 2005 — Dr. Prieto saved my right ankle/​foot. I completely shattered it and nearly took my right foot (disclocated it) off of my leg after falling 15′ onto a sloped concrete ramp… Dr. Prieto did an amazing job putting my leg back together. It took 8 screws, a metal plate, and fiber wire, but I’m as good as new after some recovery time. After lucking out by «landing» on his shift, I heard through my doctor friends that he’s considered one of the best orthopedic surgeons in San Francisco.
Climbed to the top of Mt. Shasta last year and continue to train in martial arts like I have my entire life. This isn’t just a review. This is a huge thank you to Dr. Prieto.
Also of note: one of the coolest doctors you’ll ever be around. Great personality and let’s you know exactly what’s happeing. He has a TON of experience and exudes class.

I first saw Dr. Prieto in May 2008, after I blew my knee. I had injured both my knees after a 60+ mph tumble in the mad cow downhill at alpine meadows. He initially diagnosed significant bone bruising and a tibial plateau fracture in both knees, as well as partial tears of both MCLs and my right ACL. Yea, I hit the friggin jackpot.
In august 2008, Prieto suggested ACL reconstruction, but was not adamant, considering I was already mostly recovered from all injuries and back riding bikes and hiking per usual. I cockily declined surgery and opted instead to get a de-​rotation brace and see how I faired during the next ski season. 2009 was a pretty good ski season for me, and I avoided re-​injury, skiing hard all season, into may.
Then, I re-​tore my ACL in June 2009, completely, with some pretty bad meniscus damage to boot. I knew it was time to get reconstructed. Prieto got me scheduled for ACL reconstruction on August 13^th. That day, I was scheduled for 7am surgery, but the graft that came in wasn’t up to Vic’s snuff… he said it «looks like it came from a 120 lb woman, not exactly a body match». So, I waited for a new graft to come in. While I waited for 3 hours, Prieto did two complete hip replacements, coming out from the OR to talk to me, drenched with sweat and chuckling each time.
My surgery came and went, with sweet dreams while under the knife. Vic was there waiting for me when I woke up, and gave me a detailed rundown about my surgery. He had to take about 40% of my lateral meniscus, none of the medial, and the ACL graft went in smoothly.
During the PT period, I wasn’t a very good patient. I was back on my bike 2 months out (early), backpacking 3 months out (early) and skiing 4.5 months out (early). Both Matt, my PT, and Prieto yelled at me a lot, deservedly. They really cared about the long term survival of my knee. The good news is that now, at 9 months, my knee is all good, strong, solid and ready for whatever comes at me.
Cheers to the center for sports medicine team, and Dr. Prieto. He is really THE man.

I think customer service is one of the most important parts of a practice. Dr. Prieto’s office failed miserably!
I am a counselor at a doctor’s office myself so I do have sympathy for them, but there is no exscuse for ignoring patients requests, not returning phone calls and/​or just being straight up rude when speaking with patients.

I hate doctors. The last doctor I saw without needing a sign off sheet for high school was back when I was 2 years old because my poor left ankle was hanging by a single piece of muscle. Graphic I know but that’s really what it’s going to take to get me to a doctor’s office.
I lost temporary control of both my arms when 40 lbs. of boxes forced it backwards beyond my comfort zone and for two months afterwards, I felt horrible searing, aching pain in my right shoulder. Physical therapy didn’t help but in fact made in worse and while I wanted to believe in conventional practices, getting constant massages didn’t help.
In comes Dr. Prieto and his no nonsense down to Earth way of explaining what’s going with you and the chances of making you better. He undid almost two months of pain and from 1 – 10 on a pain scale, I’m down to a 1 instead of 6. Thanks Dr. P.