Pacific Surgery Center of Santa Monica

Overall: Not Recommended

Tiny waiting room. Had to wait in the waiting area of my doctors office because there the waiting room for the surgery center was so tiny. They finally brought me in, and there was food all over the desk. The nurse said I should excuse the food, they had no lunchroom. Unprofessional and not confidence inspiring. There is no surgery prep area! If they have one, they didn't use it for me. I had to change into a gown in a restroom! Nurse sat on the toilet to fill out the forms! Then she left me sitting, in my gown, on a chair in that restroom for about an hour. I couldn't help wondering how much e-coli and other germs I was picking up off the chair and the environment. Sink was dripping too, which makes me think the place is poorly maintained. Twice people opened the door to the restroom, saw me, then excused themselves and closed the door. I almost walked out and cancelled the surgery. When they were finally ready for me, they took me not to a prep area, but directly to the operating room. The nurse was trying to adjust the "arm" part of the operating table, and it fell off! Personally, makes me wonder about the quality and maintenance of the equipment. I was quickly hooked up to monitors and sedated. I never saw my surgeon before the operation (which may be more of a problem with him). When the surgery was over, I was not taken to any type of recovery area. I was wakened on the operating table, given a few minutes to shake off the mental cobwebs, handed my clothes by a nurse, and shown the door. Using the operating room for prep and recovery means they have to hustle patients in and out. Can't help but feel the chances for problems with that are high. Previous surgeries in other facilities always included a sufficient, monitored time in a recovery area, sometimes as long as a couple of hours. Here it was "wake up and get out." What if a patient has problems that don't show up immediately? Anesthesiologist called me hours later, at home, to check on me. Nice on one level, but if they had an adequate recovery area and time, it would have been handled there. What if I did have a problem when he called, what could he do about it? Tell me to call 911? Didn't see my surgeon after the procedure, either (again, may be more an issue with my doctor than the facility). Heck, I don't even know if he was there, or somebody else did my procedure, I've lost so much confidence. My wife said she could hear the conversations during the surgery, from the waiting room. I noticed there was an open door on the side of the operating room closest to the exit when I was taken in. When I woke up, the door was open. Maybe it was closed during the procedure, but then how was my wife hearing the conversations through a closed door? Even if it was closed during the actual procedure, the fact that a door is open to non-sterile areas for prolonged periods before and after surgery means a lot of dust, and the germs the dust carries, can enter the operating room. How sterile is the operating room?