Skin and Cancer Institute - Los Angeles (Westwood)

I had a pretty horrifying experience at this office. I was sent home with an abscess and an infection of a cyst located on my neck next to my spinal cord.

I’m shocked an office like this doesn’t save space for emergency situations like mine, especially given this was a cyst they were already treating me for, and double especially since I was already there for an appointment to take out stitches.

I was told I would need to wait two weeks to make an appointment to give my insurance time to approve the visit. The idea they would care more about payment from an insurance company than their patients is truly disheartening.

When I said I would pay out of pocket and could sort it out with the insurance company later they amended the timeframe to one week saying they had other patients.

Again, this is a cyst they were already authorized to treat me for and the cyst had become infected and abscessed.

I said the pain was so bad I had considered going to the ER and the staff said if I really thought it couldn’t wait I should go to an urgent care because they could take care of it there.

So I did.

When I told the urgent care physician what happened and what was said to me he seemed genuinely horrified.

And because he isn’t a dermatologist he wasn’t able to remove the entire cyst so I’m going to have to go through this all over again with an actual dermatologist. You know, like the ones who are at this office…

I want to be clear, I was never seen by a doctor or even a PA to properly evaluate if what was going on with the cyst could/should wait. I’m not even sure any doctors at this facility know what happened, which, in my opinion, makes the situation even worse.

Frankly, I realize now I’m not certain what the credentials are for the person who took out my stitches. And given this was a stitch removal due to melanoma that feels a bit neglectful, or at minimum heartless. I also never even got a phone call telling me the procedure removed all the melanoma - just an email style automatic message through their office system. You’d think a doctor would love giving news like that to their patients.

I understand that to the people who work here this is just a job, but for their patients it’s their lives.

If I had listened to the front desk staff and waited two weeks to be treated this could have ended very badly for me.

I’m not sure what else to say other than I’m incredibly shocked and disappointed. I really liked the two doctors who treated me here previously but now I’m questioning my entire experience with them. I’m also now a bit freaked out that I’m going to have to find a new dermatologist after having just had melanoma removed, but I’m not sure how I can trust this office and their staff after this experience.