Occupational Therapy: California Pacific Medical Center: Pacific Campus

May 2024

As if the hellscape that is SF Bay Area medical care wasn't dystopian enough, enter CPMC Davies Outpatient Physical Therapy. Chronic back pain became debilitating. Went and saw my neurologist. He referred me to PT (required to do 6 weeks before an MRI is approved by my health insurance). That was mid-March. Called CPMC PT - the earliest they could fit me in was mid-late May, two months later. Such an awesome situation when one is in chronic pain. They would only schedule the intake session and 1 PT session. Waited two long months and finally went in. Have you been there? Have you visited a defunct ex-Soviet office building? It'd be easy to confuse the two. Checked in for my intake session and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Of course they were running behind schedule. Finally met with a therapist. I've been to PT's before. I'd rate her skill and ability to give clear instructions at about a 2/10. It was chaotic and unhelpful. She told me at the end of the rushed and confusing session to book the rest of my sessions: one a week for 6 weeks. I called in about an hour later to do this, and they told me the PT hadn't authorized me for further sessions. Great. I had the one scheduled PT session already set up from the beginning. Showed up and checked in and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. The PT later told me that the front desk forgot to page her to let her know I had arrived. Sounds about right. Funnily enough, her pager would not stop going off for the duration of my short appointment. In said appointment, I let the PT know I wasn't able to schedule further appointments. She admitted she forgot to release the sessions in the computer for me to be able to schedule. Amazing. Later tried to schedule the remaining 5 sessions. And yeah, they were not going to be able to fit me in for another 3 weeks. I gave up. I'd rather fly to Turkey on miles and have a scan done for a few hundred dollars than spend one more minute dealing with the clowns at CPMC. Considering everything I have experienced with medical care in SF, this experience totally tracks. This town is a joke for medical care. Wrap yourself in bubble wrap and take your vitamins because the last place you want to have to need medical care is the Bay Area.

Mar 2024

I would give zero stars if I could. I never write yelp reviews but I feel I need to warn people. I came to receive physical therapy based on a referral from my PCP after having sudden onset acute lower back pain. I saw Dr. Lily Wu 6 times and her assistant Serena once over 7 sessions. I felt gaslit and dismissed the entire time. When I expressed that a requested motion or exercise was causing me significant pain I was told to try it anyway. When I started crying because I felt so in pain and so dismissed, Serena wrote in her notes that I was "irritable" and "fearful" and acted like she didn't believe that the requested action was as painful as I said. I brought my concerns to Lily and she was very dismissive of my experience. Our subsequent sessions were better in terms of listening to me when I expressed what was causing me pain. However, she often told me I was weak and told me that my muscle weakness caused my back pain, even as I repeatedly tried to explain to her that I did these same exact exercises through barre and yoga classes prior to experiencing the back pain and that the weakness she saw was the result of being functionally bedridden for a month prior to starting sessions. She would just basically say I must not have really been doing the exercises right before because my weak glutes probably caused the pain. What's almost worse is she did it with a soft voice and a smile and I think truly believed that she was providing appropriate care, so I felt insane for being so upset by the experience. I am a successful competent 34 year old woman, and there was only one session that didn't end with me crying on the floor or in my car afterwards. Fast forward a week after my final session: they found a large tumor pressing on my spine. I am grateful that I was strong enough to advocate for myself, because if I listened to these people I would have been gaslit into believing my pain wasn't real and I needed to push through because I was just weak. If you can go truly anywhere else, please do.

Jan 2024

I give this physical therapy department a zero. Maybe a half of star Could use. more educational understanding... Of the needs of there patients physical therapy program... work is work.. Party time is after work.. not while on duty.. Yes I agree it's okay to have fun and enjoy what you do at work.. But not when patients are getting seriously hurt or injured while doing Physical therapy... Please focus on the needs of your patient's. They need your help... You go to school for years to learn how to help patients with there needs to get better and heal. not to allow them to have more injury's to there bodies... Please understand the way to help patients is not to have them keep coming back because the lack of care and understanding is not in the best interest of the patients needs... Please help your patients...