Dr. Thomas Joseph Rydz, MD

I have known Thomas Rydz since he and his family came to Eureka and he is one of the most considerate physicians that I have ever had the pleasure of being under the care of. His office staff is great and very helpful when rooming patients and taking vitals. They are caring and helpful especially Becca! I would never hesitate going to his practice again. I would recommend Dr. Rydz to everyone I know without hesitation.

In my opinion Dr. Rydz is the most non-holistic, arrogant, self-righteous, meanâ??spirited, prejudiced, non-empathetic doctor I have ever met. He recommended two additional months in a nursing home for treatment of my wife's serious pressure wound. I explained to his FNP seven ways my wife's overall condition was deteriorating in the nursing home: 1. Sleep deprivation. Wife has chronic fatigue based on Epstein-Barr virus. Adequate sleep in nursing home not possible. 2. Inadequate and poor quality protein. Wife has difficulty assimilating protein. Her blood protein level was less than half of normal upon transfer from hospital to nursing home. 3. Inadequate salt intake. Wife has tendency to hyponatremia due to inadequate salt intake in an institutional setting. Hyponatremia presents as the first stage of dementia including sun downing, confusion and short-term memory loss. 4. Lack of access to vitamins, minerals, food supplements and herbs. Lyme doctor has… recommended numerous vitamins, minerals, food supplements and herbs that have converted several abnormal conditions to normal. Other items in this group are necessary to control other formally abnormal conditions. 5. Inadequate control of blood thinning. Wife takes coumadin blood thinner because of two genetic clotting defects that make her prone to deep vein thrombi (DVTs). Upon discharge from the nursing home her INR was unacceptably low. 6. Time spent in bed. Activities outside of bed such as physical and occupational therapy and sitting in chair are limited in a nursing home, particularly on weekends, resulting in increasing weakness and muscle atrophy. 7. Danger from germs that breed in hospitals and nursing homes that are rarely found outside of these settings. My fear was that two additional months in a nursing home would make her so weak that I couldnâ??t take care of her. This would necessitate her becoming a permanent resident in a nursing home. I doubt that she would live for more than six months as a permanent nursing home resident. Dr. Rydz made it clear at a meeting in the hospital that he thought a registered nurse (RN) was required to provide my wife with wound treatment involving a wound vacuum machine for three months. He also said that an RN was not available in Southern Humboldt because Southern Humboldt lacks a nursing agency. I found a very bright xperienced RN to provide required wound care for my wife at home and arranged to pay her under my wifeâ??s in home care insurance policy. In my discussions with Dr. Rydzâ??s FNP, I was told that my wife needed to be in a nursing home for 24/7 nursing coverage. I arranged with the RN who is going to do my wifeâ??s wound treatment for 24/7 coverage. Then Dr. Rydzâ??s FNP indicated that my wife needed to be in a nursing home for access to an experienced wound care technician. I quickly arranged for access to the nursing homeâ??s experienced wound care technician. Although I had managed to set up a situation where there was no real advantage for my wife to stay in a nursing home and many disadvantages, he insisted that she should stay in a nursing home. In my final conversation with Dr. Rydzâ??s FNP she said: â??We are technicians. We are only interested in the wound, not whatever other health issues your wife has.â?? This sums it up. Dr. Rydz does not practice and is not interested in holistic medicine. The nursing homeâ??s hospitalist arranged for my wifeâ??s discharge from the nursing home after a month and ordered all the equipment that we would need to take care of my wife at home. In a fit of arrogant, self-righteous, mean-spirited pique, Dr. Rydz denounced me to the county adult protection services agency for elder abuse/neglect because I wasnâ??t going to leave my wife in a nursing home for another two months as he had recommended. During our interaction Dr. Rydz evidenced a number of prejudices. He is prejudiced against care givers with mild disabilities, people who live off the grid and people who live in Southern Humboldt. He also has no empathy with a patientâ??s situation. My wife and I have been married for over 52 years and are still romantically in love. He apparently was unable to see that another two months in a nursing home could have destroyed a beautiful relationship and a beautiful woman. One star does not adequately express my opinion of Dr. Rydz. If it were possible, I would award him only one-tenth of one star.

I was very satisfied with Dr. Rydz but not at all satisfied with his office staff-lack of professionalism and just lack of attention to their jobs. I would have felt better about the experience if the office staff didn't behave like "teeny boppers".

Dr. Rydz is a very nice man with great bedside manner! His staff is nice and they get your appointment set up very quickly. My issue is that you never hear back from them regarding testing results. You have to call and I've had to call multipe times month upon months before getting a response! That is not acceptable to me. I've always had a doctor's office call me within a few weeks of testing with the results and never had to call over and over and still not get results. Frustrating.