Dr. Charles Tawa, MD

The front desk staff at Dr. Tawa;s North Vista office are rude and incompetent. They are disrespectful to patients, don't take accurate messages, don't return phone calls and don't follow up. Since he joined North Vista, the service has been horrible. We have been patients of Dr. Tawa for many years but will be switching to a new doctor for this reason.

Like many doctors, Dr. Tawa doesn't let his ignorance get in the way of his arrogance. After coming back from Japan, where I had undergone liver transplant surgeryI was a donor for my nephew, who died two days after the operationTawa berated me for not wanting to take coumadin for a heart condition, atrial flutter, that the 10 hour long surgery had exacerbated. He said I would have to take it for the rest of my life. When I said I was worried about long-term side-effects, he snapped that having a stroke was a bad side effect, too. My cardiologist later confirmed that I did not need to be on coumadin since I was under 70, had no history of heart disease, and had normal blood pressurecriteria Tawa was unaware of. A month or so later I went to see Dr. Tawa because I was having terrible insomnia. He was totally unsympathetic and asked rather aggressively and stupidly: "Why are you not sleeping? Are you drinking lots of coffee, tea, soda pop?" Idiotic questions to put to someone who has… just been through a deeply traumatic surgery followed by the death of someone very close to him. Insulting, ignorant, and profoundly unsympathetic, that has been my experience of Dr. Tawa.