Dr. Chiedozie Ikechi Nwagwu, MD

Dr. Nwagwu left me 30% permanently paralyzed on my right arm. He performed C Spine surgery on me in 2016. He refused to help me get permanent disability. I would not recommend this surgeon to anyone in the world!! He offers no follow up to check on me. Instead he fled California.

Is Excellent.....

Dr. Nwagwu is a wonderful person as well as an extremely accomplished neurosurgeon. He is realistic in his approach and very compassionate and understanding of the patients' needs. I appreciate him everyday for giving me the opportunity to lead my desired, active lifestyle.

A year ago I suffered an aneurysm and was sent from Saddleback Hospital in San Clemente to Saddleback Hospital in Laguna Hills. Dr. Nwagwu perform emergency surgery on me immediately that day. After surgery he came and spoke with my family , and later he came a visited me late that evening and shared what went wrong with me. To make a long story short, over the next 10 days in the hospital he came checked on me and talked with me each and everyday (including spending over an hour with me on Super Bowl Sunday). His bedside manner was incredible and he truly cared about my well being. I am lucky and I came out of this situation with no long term issues, and I truly believe I overcame my illness, due to Dr. Nwagwu ability to share with me what was going on with me and his amazing skills as a surgeon. If you ever need a neurosurgeon, he is the Doctor you want!!!

Dr. Nwagwu walked us through, what was an intimidating process, showing his amazing mastery of his art and a very compassionate spirit. His personal fascination and passion for the healing process is very inspiring. So very blessed to have him as my treasured doctor.

I love Dr. Nwagwu. He is super kind, compassionate, caring a wonderful human being and a fantastic Doctor.

He saved my life!!!

Dr. Nwagwu is a talented, caring and intelligent doctor. I recommend him without reservation!

Simply put, my mother survived her stroke because of Dr. Nwagwu. She had multiple hemorrhages,.. 'subarachnoid hemorrhage' they called it, and yet she survived. It's been nearly ten years and I'll always remember the doctor who worked his magic, or merely did what this doctor does -and all doctors should do- best, and that was treat patients with the best of his/their abilities. He was very honest on the progress of my mom and at one point admitted that my mother had a slim chance of surviving, but he was going to do what he could. They were words uttered with confidence, but also with compassion; like most doctors, he provided the harsh truth, but this doctor further added a hint of hope.. I respect him for that. I thank Dr. Nwagwu for his amazing skills and his staff who were also key players in my mom's survival. Four star rating for Dr. Nwagwu and his staff.I have to add, however, that my mother was given priority when she was in the ER (at UCI MC). When we went for a follow up… visit 1 year later at the Mission Hospital (yes, we requested to see him after he transferred to Mission, even though that meant traveling an extra hour from where we lived. He was that special to us!) it was there that we were asked to wait for quite some time and also asked to fill many forms (hence, the lone 3 star rating for wait time). We were not surprised though because we knew he was an extremely busy doctor and was seeing many patients. Also, since the brain can affect all parts and functions of the body, such as vision, hearing, finger movements, etc., the questions asked on the forms were not irrelevant, (in response to the first rating) but were, on the contrary, most likely used to integrate information to better assess abnormalities caused by possible brain injuries. In sum, I want everyone to hear my story and have the same confidence in this doctor as I do. After all, my mother owes her life to him, and in a sense, I feel I do too. Thanks Dr. Nwagwu!

To begin, I have to say that I have not actually seen this doctor, I had a problem with his front office staff.The need to see a neurosurgeon is pretty frightening to me, and I tend to get on the defensive when I feel boxed in. That's how I felt here, and I did not feel any compassion on the part of his staff. When I went in for the appointment, they gave me a stack of forms to fill out. I know this is standard practice, but they gave me several forms requesting duplicate information, and worse, many forms were irrelevant to why I was there. I have a brain injury, but they gave me forms to rate my leg pain, my back pain, my neck pain, none of which had anything to do with why I was there. This request for irrelavent information did not inspire confidence! I had said specifically why I needed to see the doctor when I made my appointment, and these forms made me feel like no one actually paid any attention to what I had said.One of the forms, again likely a pretty standard thing,… was authorization for them to charge me whatever they want, and if it was not covered by my insurance I would pay within 30 days, or pay 1.5% interest per month on the balance. Since this was my first visit, I was not willing to commit to an open ended payment, without knowing first what they could offer to do for me, what it would cost, and whether it was covered by my insurance. Rather than discuss anything with me, one of the staff said to the other "He doesn't want to take responsibility". This may not have been intended as a snarky comment, but that's how I heard it. The other staff member leaned back in the chair and said that this was standard, and that I would have to do this same thing in any Doctors office.I've declined to sign these on my first visit to other offices in the past, and while there was some dismay, the staff will usually at least have SOME discussion before dismissing my concerns as irrelevant. The first staff member then said that "there has to be a certain amount of trust involved" but by this time I had not spoken to anyone about anything, what did I have to base trust on?The stonewalling beaurocratic mentality, the atypically large stack of irrevant and/or duplicate information request forms, and the insistance that I authorize open ended payment before I was told what I might be on the hook for put me in a negative mood, but rather than make any effort to actually SPEAK to me, I felt immediately dismissed.This is not a good start to a relationship that will need to have trust at its core, and did not engender any feelings of confidence that I was in the right place, so I walked out.