Dr. David Antonio Sun, MD

I had the misfortune of dealing with Dr. Sun when he removed a brain tumor from my mom. Unfortunately, Dr. Sun appears to labor under the misconception that projecting arrogance inspires confidence. He will ask if you have any questions, but you better only have one because that’s all he has patience for. And if he doesn’t like your question, he will simply give you an obviously dismissive answer and tell you what he thinks you should (or he wants) you to focus on. When he’s dismissing your questions and telling you what he wants you to hear he will repeatedly use a rose garden metaphor to dumb down the conversation to a kindergarten level because he thinks you’re too stupid to understand it otherwise. Everything about this guy exudes “I’m smart and you’re not.” He will tell you “I would give the same advice to my mother”, but it’s obvious in everything he says and does that this is just another case to him and he has no appreciation that his patient is trying to understand and… make one of the most important decisions of their life. I eventually stopped asking questions because his answers were useless and infuriating and I didn’t want to upset my mom. So you might say “Arrogant brain surgeon? Not surprising. I don’t care as long as he’s good.” I can’t vouch for that either. He ran an exhaustive battery of pre-surgical tests for the express purpose of avoiding & protecting the language center of the lobe. Unfortunately, during surgery my mother had a stroke in the exact area of the lobe they were trying to protect and now she has severe aphasia and is undergoing daily therapy to try to rebuild what was lost. Apparently a narrowed artery in that side of the brain was blamed, but if they knew about that ahead of time shouldn’t they have accounted for it? If they didn’t know, should they have given all of the tests they ran? I don’t know if he made a mistake or could have done something better. Answers to questions about the stroke were even less helpful than usual with him. Maybe the preparation and execution were perfect and the stroke was unavoidable. Maybe it isn’t’ an example of “he messed up”, but it also certainly isn’t an example of “wow, he’s a great surgeon.”

We went to see Dr Sun when my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He came in and told us he couldn’t do surgery but he never said that there would be surgeons who could do the surgery with better technology in other parts of the country. We found a surgeon who could do the surgery due an awake method to ensure no critical speech/language areas were affected. On top of that, when my brother later had an infection once we returned to Louisville we went to Norton Brownsboro and in my brother’s hospital room he looked me in the eye (not my brother) and Dr. Sun said “I told you he shouldn’t have had surgery”. It was the most insensitive thing I could’ve imagined someone saying to a person fighting for their life. Because we found a surgeon at UCSF who would Operate, my brother had an extra year added to his life and no difficulty with speech, strength or vision like Dr. Sun told us. I hope this helps prepare even just one person who may be going through the same thing.

Incision wouldn't heal. When I called about it I was told it was "hormonal", go see your family doctor!! Ended up with plastic surgery on incision due to the blood being cut off (by mesh plate?) to right side of scalp. The REASON my incision wouldn't heal!

Dr. Sun is an amazing neurosurgeon and I am blessed he has taken such great care of my son.

Dr. Sun is an excellent surgeon! I had considered going out of state for surgery to remove a pituitary tumor . I researched the neurosurgeons in the Louisville area and made an appointment with Dr. Sun based on the excellent recommendations from those knowledgable in this area. After two meetings with him, I felt confident he was the surgeon I wanted. I am very pleased with my decision!