Michael Duran

Review of Havasu Regional Medical Center

DOCTORS BEWARE! I've worked at this little hospita...

DOCTORS BEWARE! I've worked at this little hospital in the anesthesia department on two separate occasions, and in my opinion the place was an ongoing mess. I'll review for prospective staff, and patients.

Docs: The administration of this hospital hates you. I mean, more than the average hospital admin. They really hate you, and they want to see you fail, or at least control you and keep you under their collective thumb. Thereby destroying you. It's not just "the changing face of medicine," either, its that the individuals in the admin have serious personal power problems. No, it's not just my perception. I still clearly remember a staff meeting I went to, the morale was terrible and everyone was at one another's throats the entire meeting. I asked a couple people at my table if the vibe was always this bad, and apparently it is typical. Part of the problem is, their CEO's are rotating, typically lasting for 2-3 years before moving on. One I met was an alcoholic, the other one (I think the current one) is a grandstanding nincompoop with zero medical anything. The chief of medical staff is a physician, but a sell-out who notoriously treats physicians poorly. As a doc you will have no friends in the Havasu admin. As far as the Anesthesia department goes.. Well it is no better with Sheridan than it was with Apollo, despite the schtick you'll hear on interview. At the time I left, the anesthesiologists themselves were a pretty mixed bag of very inexperienced folk and a couple good ones.

Patients: The hospital has a pretty bad reputation for internal medicine and related subspecialties, though I can't comment on that. If you are having surgery here, the surgeons here are actually pretty good. This isn't something most anesthesiologists admit very easily, but they really are an excellent group of docs overall. There are two bad players (though I can't say who they are) but by and large surgical skill is surprisingly good for such a small, out of the way place like this. Your anesthesiologist probably won't kill you. The head of nursing has a personality disorder, but most people make it off of the post-op nursing floors alive.

I guess the takeaway is, if you are visiting town and you break your ankle you'll be good. If you're a doc looking for a job and have other options, move on.