Dr. Bruce William Brient, MD

he performed an abdominal surgery on me in 1994 and by is own admission "someone was dirty in the OR" because i nearly died of an infection from the surgery. He sent me home with no antibiotics and I had to be packed for a solid 3 months. A co-worker of mine was operated on by Dr Brient and same thing---dirty OR and he had been packed for over 3 YEARS

Dr. Brent did a weight loss surgery on me and left two surgical sponges inside my abdomen. I developed sepsis and had a fever. He waited 3 days to order a cat scan and then - when the catscan showed the sponges left inside I had to go back into surgery to have them removed. He laughed and told me it was not a big deal, and said he sometimes was a bit forgetful and joked about his old age (he is 80). After the second surgery I was in the hospital for a really long time, and I lost my job. I will be on IV antibiotics for 2-3 months. Contacted a lawyer who is reviewing the case. Don't use this surgeon.

*** TL,DR; Dr. Brient did a roux -en-y gastric bypass on me. Prior to this surgery I was completely healthy, besides being morbidly obese (no diabetes, no heart disease, no hypertension, no COPD....ect). He made several surgical errors and it went horribly. I am completely unable to eat or drink after my surgery, I suffered severe malnutrition that eventually led to multi- system organ failure, and I am now dying. I am 34 years old. DR BRIENT NEEDS TO RETIRE. Do NOT let him operate on you or anyone you love. This man is dangerous. *** Dr Bruce Brient did a roux-en-y gastric bypass on me, making several errors which has cost me, literally, everything. On the day of my surgery my BMI was exactly 40, approximately 240 pounds on my 5 foot, 4 inch body. I had NO other health related diagnoses whatsoever [no diabetes, no hypertension, no heart disease ect). I was a busy professional at the beginning of my career in medicine and part of the reason I wanted this surgery was because… I wanted to be a good example to my patients - how can I tell a patient to lose weight when I was also obese? After my surgery I was immediately completely unable to eat anything by mouth - whatsoever - not even an ice cube. I assumed it was just the anesthesia, and I went home, but then had to go to the ER because I could not eat or drink and quickly dehydrated. Within 8 weeks of my initial surgery, he did another surgery to remove my gallbladder (which didn't need to be removed) and placed a feeding tube in my abdomen, but I was still unable to tolerate the tube feeds, becaus of errors Dr. Brient made in surgery in my intestines. At first he really seemed to try. The first 8 weeks after my bypass I was hospitalized, and it seemed like he was trying to figure out what was wrong, but quickly became frustrated when he couldn't figure it out, and then began to blame me. He then began to blame me, both verbally and went so far as to chart, extensively, that this was a psych issue and I was a "drug seeker"* thankfully, - every other physician disagreed. While I wasted away (I lost 100 pounds in the first 6 months), he was gleeful; while every other physician was saying I was starving to death, dying in front of them, he was ecstatic. ***I was only able to keep down about 100 calories a day, on a good day*** both orally and through my feeding tube(s) [in the first 24 months we tried so many different feeding tubes]. Losing 100 pounds in 6 months, literally starving, I began to ask for a second opinion - and even went to his managing practitioner [the manager of the private surgical group] to try to get another opinion and that's when his behavior changed toward me. He went into CYA mode, charting extensively that this was all in my head, that I was a drug seeker, ect. Most of it was either blown out of proportion or completely fabricated. He even went so far as to chart about the fact that my family - who live in California - weren't at my bedside (why was this relevant?) [Also realize that the electronic charting system the hospital was using made it nearly impossible to access my chart, so he could write anything - and he did exactly that. * Prior to this surgery, I had never been prescribed an opioid or benzo in my life, ever.* Prior to the surgery, I had zero medical diagnoses outside of a BMI of 40. I was a busy medical professional, a registered nurse, going to school to become a CRNA (nurse anesthetist), able to work and go to school full-time. As I spent nearly two years in the hospital getting sicker and sicker, I saw Dr. Brent nearly every evening. Some days he would be sweet and supportive, other nights he would come into my room yelling and screaming at me (so much so that every nurse on the unit heard it and they had to intervene). I knew that he was frustrated, and I was too; so in my naivety I gave him the benefit of the doubt (over and over). Since he couldn't figure it out, he began to tell me it was all in my head. I asked if I could get a referral to Mayo, only two hours away, but he was NOT having that. He would allow me to go see "his buddy" at the Cleaveland Clinic - but nobody else. Why would I drive 8 hours to go see your "Buddy," Dr. Rosenthal, when Mayo clinic is two hours away? But he did NOT want me to get a second opinion and I was on the hospitals ' insurance at that time. Being that I had a professional history of working in surgery, on his good days, he would tell me stories of things that happened that day in the OR. He *LITERALLY* would laugh and giggle about surgical "oopsies" which always struck me as strange. For example, he told me about a patient that had two retained surgical sponges that he missed (that means that two of the rags that they used in surgery were left inside the patient); and on a different day told me that he was doing a gallbladder removal (a cholecystectomy) and accidentally left the main bile duct to the liver clamped: both patients required a second surgery and one required a third surgery as a direct result of these errors. I finally got to Mayo Clinic, but only after I was placed on Medicare (after being on disability for 24 months you become eligible for Medicare) freeing me from the hospitals' insurance (that I paid COBRA for). When I got to Mayo, I weighed in at 79 pounds (I'm 5',4" tall). For reference, when I graduated boot camp at 17, I weighed 137 pounds. At 79 pounds, you could see every rib and every vertebrae going down my back. Mayo determined *immediately* that this *wasn't* just in my head (he made me doubt myself), that this was OBVIOUSLY a surgical error and they went in immediately to try to repair what was wrong. There were several things, surgically, Dr. Brient did that was *very* wrong. He bypassed so much of my intestine [like they did when they first started doing roux-en-y surgeries in

Dr. Brient was very professional as I was admitted to ER at North fl. He explained everything in detail and handled my situation efficiently. He was very kind and compassionate.

love this dr. one of the best doctor I have ever had. He is caring and if there is a problem he will do his best to help get it corrected. I trust this dr. with my life. He truly cares about each and every one that comes threw his doors for help..

I enjoyed seeing Dr. Brient, he has a good bedside manner and a good sense of humor. We did find him to be somewhat absent minded. It may be due to his work load.Unfortunately I developed complications soon after my first surgery while still in IC unit due to a device used in the surgery. It apparently went undetected which resulted in a month of continuing complications and an emergency surgery, a month later, to remove the device and restructuring.

Dr. Brient is a very caring person, he even gives his cell phone number to us to call him if we need him when the office is closed. He spends as much time with you as he needs to to help you with anything you need to talk about, this means sometime ti have to wait for your appointment but he will do the same for you when its your turn.

This doctor is awesome from the get go. I highly recommend him for any surgical needs. He is right there with you from the beginning to the end. No matter when you call him - he will talk to you.

Excellent doctor. Spent generous amount of time explaining needed surgery. Has a sense of humor.

He is a great doctor. He is professional and so nice. The only bad thing is the waiting to see him. His staff is great also.