John F Mendes, MD

Upon first meeting Dr. Mendes about my hand I was happy. It was only after wearing the brace and following his instructions to the letter and the brace came off and my hand was disfigured that I became dissatisfied. It is not only that I do not have full function of my hand and chronic pain, it was Dr. Mendes' attitude towards the situation. He told me it was not his fault for having set it wrong, but my fault for having broke it in the first place. I was at a loss because I found him to be intimidatingly confident and intelligent. How could I question his wisdom? And yet here I am with a gimp hand and out the money that he had initially assured me was covered by my insurance but in fact was not. Once I was no longer considered a patient, his office stopped taking my calls.

My husband and I went to see Dr. Mendes for my husband's back problem with herniated discs. Dr. Mendes went through the MRI report quickly, and then suggest him to do surgery right the way. We were trying to understand the exact situation, how much the disc was herniated, how did it pinch the nerve, how much it bulge out... etc, simple questions, come on, we are talking about surgery around the spine! Dr. Mendes answer was simple. 85%-90%, and you need surgery. When I asked him, so what is the exact measurement, he was like, didn't I tell you? It's 85%, here is the ruler (throwing it to the table in front of me), measure it yourself. I was like, but the MRI image on the screen is not 1:1, so what is the exact measurement? His answer was, I am in a rush, I have a patient waiting for me next door. Uh hah.. I see why he only spends 5mins with us, there is another 'important patient' next door... In short, we never get an exact measurement from Dr. Mendes. He doesn't seem to know how to measure neither.