Dr. Dean Nottingham, DO

My mother is alive today due to the incredible skill and heroic efforts of this amazing doctor. She suffered 5 cardiac arrests in the E.R. and he resuscitated her each time, working well after his shift ended. We are deeply indebted to him.

I had the *cough* pleasure of seeing this doctor twice at North Broward Medical Centers Emergency Room.The first time my year old child was the patient. For 3 weeks he had been coughing to the point of vomiting up to 15x's a day. He had seen the pediatrician & had completed two rounds of different ABX with no improvement. The cough was his ONLY symptom. I rushed him to the ER because when he had a particularly bad coughing spell that morning during which his lips and the tips of his fingers became cyanotic. While we were in the ER Mr. Nottingham (can't bring myself to call him Dr.)did NOT WITNESS him OR MONITOR his O2 sats DURING an attack-didn't even try, as if it did not occur to him. The TRIAGE RN checked his O2 stat for about 10 sec., as they do ALL pt.'s upon presentation to the ER. to establish a baseline. Standard of care, I believe, would be CONTINUOUS O2 monitoring for any pt. that reports becoming cyanotic while having coughing 'fits' lasting several minutes. So they can see… what happens DURING a spell when it spontaneously occurs AND to CYA if the kid starts to go downhill. In addition, this was the pt.'s chief complaint. (ie: the whole reason we were there to begin with.)I told him the OBJECTIVE history--'Three weeks of coughing spells numerous times a day with about 12-15 of them being so intense they caused the pt. to vomit & starting today cyanosis of the lips and fingertips. Had been treated w/ two full rounds of ABX w/ no improvement and the child was not vaccinated.)-- I don't think he HEARD a word I said, he seemed to pretend to be listening. He didn't seem willing to even feign listening any SUBJECTIVE history. I felt as if my observations and opinions were of no diagnostic value but merely a waste of his valuable time. He had other subjects, I mean patients, that were *really* sick .Besides, he had all he needed;1.) His CONSEQUENTIAL cerebellum and 2.) Access to his 'subject' (my son, whom he treated more like an object than a human being).In fact, he possessed such diagnostic acumen that he already had it ALL figured out! Without even touching the kid.He said something like "I know what this is-I'll send the nurse in with discharge papers" and promptly exited the area before I could ask any *stupid* questions. All I needed to do was blindly follow HIS discharge orders-I didn't need to have any understanding or what his diagnosis was or what the care plan was. That kinda stuff was for the highbrows, I was a lowbrow, I only needed to know how to follow directions.True to his word, he sent the nurse in to go over discharge information with me-he never did come back in to tell me what the plan of care was.Diagnosis: Upper Respiratory Infection (AGAIN?)Treatment: Amoxicillin (AGAIN?)And...over the counter children's cough syrup. (Which the American Academy of Pediatrics had recently ruled contraindicated in a child my son's age--and I knew it but I guess the good Dr. hadn't heard yet.)If he had been LISTENING he would have known...the kid had already been treated once with Amoxicillin with no improvement. But what he SHOULD have known-without me saying anything-was that a URI does not present with a cough as it's ONLY symptom! The child would have-in the very least-had a history at the beginning of the illness having congestion or a runny nose...SOMETHING more than JUST a cough. It's my opinion that he just didn't think it was that big of a deal. Just some virus or a common cold. Toss some medication at the hysterical mother to appease her and get back to the patients that *really* need to be in the ER. They had patients who were really *sick* and I was wasting his time coming into the ER with a kid who had a common cold. I "should" have waited until Monday and taken him to the pediatrician.Well, I hunted him down. He was hiding out at the nurses station dictating notes or something. I could see the frustration in his face when I got his attention. I was about to interrupt him and waste more of his time. I told him that I was really worried about the kid getting cyanotic during these coughing spells and that I didn't think it was a URI because he had already been treated for that and I reminded him that the child had taken two courses of ABX, one of them being Amoxicillin and it hadn't touched the cough. In a very combative tone, he informed me that if I didn't agree with his diagnosis then couldn't help me and if I didn't want to use the ABX then to 'not use them'. I asked what he thought the cough was from and he said "The URI."At this point I realized he was so combative that I wasn't going to get anywhere and was just wasting MY time. In my opinion this guy is a deplorably narcissistic & incompetent doctor and a disgrace to the field of medicine. ***I took my child home & kept careful watch over him since I was still worried. About 10 days later I was in St. Petersburg Florida for Thanksgiving when he had another cyanotic episode and while trying to find somewhere in the area to take him for care, I decided to look up his symptoms online. He had a CLASSIC case of 'Pertussis" (Whooping Cough). At this point he had been to 7 doctor's offices and two Emergency Rooms. While NO doctor was as rude or dismissive as Mr. Nottingham, they had also been unable to diagnose him either. So, I had become rather assertive at this point in my frustration.1.) I took him into the children's hospital and demanded that they keep him overnight for observation with a pulse ox on to see how low his sat's were going during an attack and how long it took for it to return to baseline so I could be sure that he wasn't at risk for oxygen deprivation issues. 2.) I demanded that they check him for pertussis. This has to be sent to the CDC for testing so they often avoid doing so. As for Mr. Nottingham:I can understand that we all make mistakes-too err is human-but his 'mistakes' arise from (I