We love UCI! My mom and I had our first consultation at the UCI Health Chao Comprehensive Cancer Center in Orange County. This is a continuation of my search for a local oncologist for my mom now that she is past her 100 days post-transplant. I would love for her to stay solely at City of Hope (COH), but the drive takes quite a toll on her. Plus, if there is a real emergency, it would be good to have a local hospital that has her records. Thankfully, the entire experience with UCI was fantastic. I am very excited to get to know the hospital and the team. I took the first flight out of San Jose on Monday morning and last flight out of Orange County to return back home. It was quite a flashback to my consulting days. This time, my business objective was: "Establish good local oncologist for Mama Pham."We originally picked St. Joseph's as her local oncology office. After our initial 2 visits, I did not feel at ease leaving her under the care of St. Joseph's Hospital so I did some more research, talked to some more people and setup an appointment at UCI. Several factors contributed to my decision to move her out of the St. Josephs of Orange County care system. I may write more about that in a different post. The entire experience at UCI was so refreshing. Below are several key points that made our visit great and set me at ease as I returned to San Jose:
- Complimentary valet with a great staff. This saves my mom from having to navigate a parking deck and is definitely a great perk for days when she feels particularly weak
- A friendly reception desk with very competent receptionists and schedulers
- An easy scheduling process. This is important because she requires many appointments, sometimes involving multiple departments and multiple doctors.
- On-time appointment even in the afternoon
- Great nurses
- Easy navigation of the building
- Most importantly, we loved our new oncologist. My mom was very happy; it is very important that she feels comfortable going to the hospital and seeing the doctor.
Each little battle won always feels great. Our battle this time was finding a good local oncology team to continue the great work of all the doctors from City of Hope, and be well-prepared if anything happens. Hooray for UCI!