Dr. David Van Cossman, MD

I only met Dr. Cossman about 15 hours before I was scheduled for a back surgery early the next morning. Everything was going normally as he explained his part of the procedure - to cut me open and clear the pathway to my spine for the back doctor. But at the end, he exclaimed, "I'm gonna see you naked!" and sort of laughed as if he thought he, or it, was quite funny. It was not funny, and the thought terrified me to think I'd be unconscious and defenseless while in the company of a man thinking those sorts of thoughts about me. If I hadn't been in so much pain and had I had more time before my surgery, I definitely would have requested he be replaced. No woman should have to be subjected to that kind of terrorizing. Additionally, exactly along the line from my belly button to my pubis where he had to cut, we all have an umbilical medial ligament; he injured the ligament so severely my bowel sucked through it, twisted and got strangled, required reducing me to no fluids, a nine… day hospital stay (rather than only the overnight stay as expected), additional tests, x-ray exposures, cutting (for photographs) and an additional surgery by a third doctor to free my bowel and to correct his negligence not only in injuring me, but also in not re-examining his work before closing me up. He may appear to have years of experience but his earlier abusive attitude towards me, I can only believe, carried over to his poor attention to his work as well, causing me even greater harm. And, I cannot imagine I am the first patient he has treated this way.

Dr Cossman is in a class of his own. It impossible to compare his skill and knowledge with any other surgeon.