Tips while you are at MD Anderson

Your appointment at MD Anderson may be for one day or many days. We want you to have a great experience. Here are our top tips to make the most of your visit at the hospital.

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Here are tips MD Anderson doesn't tell you:
1) ALWAYS check the appointment notices your receive. As a patient, you have an account on the MyChart website/app. They use it to notify you about upcoming appointments. ALWAYS verify the procedure is correct such as the correct contrast for X-ray, MRI, or CT scans. I have caught several errors in the scheduled appointments. Not only that, but be very aware they have a habit of changing the appointments and can do so even as close as within 1 week of the appointment.

2) If you are being treated by more than 1 doctor (2 separate specialists/2 separate departments), being aware there is a seemingly lack of communications between the various departments. So instead of scheduling the diagnostic procedures for both doctors in one appointment, due to lack of communications, they would end up scheduling 2 separate procedures on different days. For example, one doctor wanting MRI on the kidneys, and one doctor wanting MRI on the pancreas. Instead of doing both in one visit, they schedule it for 2 MRIs on separate days. Or blood specimen drawn twice, or X-rays one day and then CT-scan a week later. Completely lacking in any coordination, so you have to force the issue.

3) If you have surgery, have a family member watch the nurses like a hawk because they are not that good. My mother had the IV ripped out of her arm when the nurses moved her to a chair to change her bed because they carelessly got the IV tubing tangled.

4) Make sure you fully understand any medications they give you BEFORE you are released from the hospital following surgery because the phone number they give you before your rlease does not go to your doctor but to a messaging service who is suppose to contact someone on call and in my case it took OVER 12 hours for someone from MD Anderson to call me back. I ended up having to call a family member in another state who was a doctor to help me out because no one from MD Anderson called me back for over 12 HOURS!