My Wife woke up today with pain that radiated from her spine around to her chest. She is pregnant thus we became concerned. Her OB and Internal medicine doctor are out of town for the week. So her OB nurse instructed we go to the ER immediately. We assumed Summit being the closest hospital would save some time as opposed to going into Nashville. We arrived around 2pm. We were there for about 30 minutes when we brought back for blood pressure tests and to tell the nurse what was wrong. After that she directed us back to the waiting room. We waited another hour and a half before they called us into the registration room. Then back to the waiting room for another 2 hour wait. As we were finally walking back to see the doctor we over heard one of the nicer nurses there mention to a patient that the current billboard wait time stated 41 minutes. As opposed to the real average time of us and everyone else of nearly 4 hours. During our long wait time we saw 3 of the 8 people that were there when we showed up actually go back and stay back. Once we got back the doctor saw us for all of 3 minutes during which time he stated a chest x-ray would not cause any problems from a pregnancy stand point but he didn't think that was necessary. My wife is not one to go to the hospital or doctor for acute pain. She was nearly in tears most of the day. He told her to take Tylenol and sleep it off. This was my first experience with this Hospital and it will be my last. Aside from 2 nurses that seemed to actually enjoy what they do, we were in a sea of disgruntled workers and patients. Walking down the hall we overheard numerous short tempered staff members and a lot of patient complaints. I work for a Neuro surgeon in the area and no one on our staff would ever be caught talking to a patient in the manor most of these nurses/doctors were conducting in. This place needs to be avoided. Take the extra time to drive to Saint Thomas/Baptist in Nashville. The drive time will be well worth the assumed shorter wait and better staff experience.
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