Palomar Medical Center Poway

Worst hospital ever. The nurses are never around, my father was there this weekend and didn't receive food until 1:30 pm... and hadn't eaten all day and was starving. On top of that he has a colonoscopy bag for his cancer and it broke and everything got everywhere and he was waiting there for 10-15 minutes maybe longer for the nurses to come and help him because he was unable to. Also I was looking for his nurses and they were nowhere to be found no nurses anywhere until further down the hall... I spoke with another nurse to complain to her about the situation and she gave me attitude and acted as if I was lying about no nurses where there, then she proceeded to call said nurse and didn't respond and said that was odd... I had to demand that there need to be a nurse checking up on him twice an hour. One more thing the nurses did not know how to attach his colonoscopy bag which is odd because that is their job to do and the fact they couldn't even do that and she even seemed bothered. That's unacceptable behavior and unprofessional, this is the most worst hospital to ever go to, they do not care about you and only care about the money. This is their job to help the patients and make them as comfortable as they can and they do the complete opposite. I highly highly recommend going anywhere else and do not leave your family member alone there because I guarantee that they will not get the help and attention they need.

Today I had a visit with Dr. Rao, a rheumatologist at Palomar Medical Center in Poway. She began the encounter by saying how much she loved our little family. My wife and I were instantly charmed by her . She was all bright eyes and brilliant smiles. During the exam she did something completely unexpected. She reached up behind me feeling the area of regard with her hands. She gently rubbed my neck, cervical spine and bilateral shoulders. She said "there it is." I don't know how she knew to approach that particular area, but she did. She then asked me "How are you even walking?" I can say this much, it took her all of 10 seconds to make a diagnosis. And not much longer to work out a short term plan with new medications and imaging. Dr. Rao set the bar, moving it up to a higher level of care that we could only hope to meet.

This happened months ago, and I just got the courage to leave a review. The more complete review is on Yelp in my fathers words... My mother was admitted to Palomar Hospital in March, We decided to go to Palomar Hospital ER due to UCSD ER on strike, and my mother's symptoms were of shivering and had a fever with a cough. Where everything looked good and she was going to be discharged within the next 2 days, a series of events happened...where my mother was going in-between ICU room to discharge room, back to the ICU room. After a horrifying night of March 3, 2025, 4:51AM my mom calls about her having trouble breathing and that she is scared. She stated she was afraid of what the nurses were doing to her and told us to hurry to save her. My mother explained to us that they were forcing her to drink Potassium from a full cup due to low levels, we told the hospital and everyone it was due to her chemo treatment, and she cannot intake orally. Arriving at the hospital, mom was having a hard time breathing and they were using an oxygen mask to assist. Mother was still complaining about not being able to breathe, nurse advised us that this is normal, and she will be fine. We had to complain and have them send her back to ICU for further evaluation/examination, because 'just' an oxygen mask was not helping her breath. Find out at ICU that she had liquid build up in her lungs and symptoms of pneumonia, needed to immediately order a drainage of the lungs (more than 10 liters of liquid *orange potassium was drained*) Traumatic experience, nightmare. Where she ultimately succumbed to respiratory failure at home.

I waited to be seen for possible broken ribs after a fall. Everyone was so kind and well trained! They got me in promptly, took blood and got a CT scan. No broken ribs, but they did find a nodule on my lung I'm to follow up with my GP about. In and out within 3 hours! Highly recommend if you ever find yourself needing an ER visit AND you can pre schedule online!!!

I don't recommend this place. The ER doctor confused me with another patient and gave me the wrong results of my ultrasound. I was never given the diagnosis, although if he had actually read my ultrasound it showed I had a pregnancy related hemorrhage and he neglected to tell me that and told me everything looked ok on my ultrasound and there was nothing concerning. He said there is 1000 reasons that could have caused my bleeding. I spent an hour in the ER waiting for that doctor to talk to me and to just be told someone else's results as he clearly didn't tell me my correct ultrasound result, I could have proceeded to continue life normally and not taken precautions considering the hemorrhage which could cause further complications with my baby. It wasn't until I got home when I read my imaging report and saw listed on there the result that there was something really concerning on there that the ER doctor never told me. This is negligent! I'm furious with this experience strictly because of that doctor.