I recently moved to the area and had been having ongoing problems with abdominal pain that would come and go. Finally, after running a fever and having increasing pain for a few days, it became clear that this wasn't just a stomach bug or pulled muscle. Since I was a new patient, I couldn't get into any of the local doctor's offices in a short period of time, so on the recommendation of a friend went to the Mercy ER.
Since I got there at a slow time (if you don't have a life-or-death emergency, 7-9 am seems to be a pretty good time as far as avoiding the rush goes), check in took only a few minutes and I was seen very quickly. Dr. Lewis, the doctor on call, was excellent - after a preliminary exam he ran through what the ""game plan"" was, so that I knew exactly what steps we were going to take to figure out what was going on.
In total, we were there about 2 hours, some of which was just waiting for test results to come back. I left with a diagnosis and a referral to a specialist for follow up care.
I know that my experience was likely good in part because the ER was slow at the time (I came in prepared for a 3 hour wait since I knew I'd be low priority based on my symptoms), but a big part of it was the friendliness and kindness of the staff, along with excellent communication from them. Several of the staff looked totally exhausted when I saw them in the hallways, but when they came in to see me, they were smiling and courteous.
Pros: Very clean, kind staff, good communication
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