As far as I'm concerned, this man killed my father. My dad was 65 years old, and not exactly the picture of health, as he was a lifelong smoker with obvious lung issues. However, he hadn't really had a history of heart problems up until the end. Our family doctor, in August, examined him and noted that my dad's blood pressure, heartbeat, cholesterol, and diabetes were all under control, although he noted a little swelling in the legs. Four months later, my dad was dead. He started having issues breathing and fluid started building around the heart. He developed arrhythmia, and went to Dr. Kilpatrick, who had treated my grandparents. My father would hear nothing of seeing another doctor for a second opinion, sure that Dr. Kilpatrick was the best, according to reputation. His answer to our pleas that he consult someone else just once was "Well if Dr. Kilpatrick isn't worried, I'm not." He got weaker and weaker. He started sleeping more. They tried pill after pill to get his heartbeat back in rhythm, when friends were telling us thier relatives had had the elctroshock therapy after pills didn't work, and were fine afterwards, something my mother had to have done a year earlier, also by Kilpatrick. My father deteriorated in a matter of weeks. My brother in law brought him to numerous visits to the office, where my father was seen by mostly the nurse practitioners, almost never the doctor, who pumped him full of diuretics and sent him home. When my mother had surgery in late November, the nurses tending to her were so alarmed by my father's appearance, they brought equipment in to check him, and he wasn't the admitted patient. His legs swelled to near splitting, he could barely sit upright. Two days before he died, my brother in law again brought him to the office. Again, he didn't see the doctor. The nurses gave him an IV of Lasix and sent him home, as he was scheduled to recieve a pacemaker, 3 weeks after an echo had shown he needed one, and the echo test was done months later than it should have been done. The morning of his pacemaker surgery, my sister awoke to find him dead in his bed. Any fool could have seen my father was in distress for a long time, but dad refused to go to the ER, saying he was going to be going to the hospital in a few hours anyway, what was a few more hours? His life, apparently. My father was not a greatly healthy man, but he was far from decrepit. He was cutting back on the smoking seriously and had just retired. He adored his young grandchildren, most of whom will never know him or remember him. He was only 65. He had at least another decade. Dr. Kilpatrick neglected him. He has too many patients and relies too heavily on his nurses. Find another doctor.
by Ashley Michel
xxx.xxx.163.200
January 15, 2014
