Dr. Joe Thomas Kelley, MD

While I had difficulty making an appointment (phones not answered on two occasions) once I saw Dr Kelly he was thorough, very considerate and took time to explain his diagnosis clearly. He asked many questions to help him understand and genuinely seemed to care whether I was satisfied with the outcome. He was personable and very approachable. While it was the first time I met him, I consider him excellent.

Dealings with a female receptionist destroyed a previously halfway decent doctor/patient relationship. It's unfortunate that the doctor values his employees far more than his patients...

Dr. Kelley is far and away one of the best doctors I have had. That's saying something for one soon-to-be-80 year- old professor and university administrator, not unaccustomed to exacting evaluations. I have found him to be extraordinarily attentive and remarkably competent. Under his care for RA for nearly a decade, I can commend him without the slightest reservation.

After reading some of the reviews I feel I must share my experience with Dr. Kelley. I am and RN with significant disease process. I found Dr. Kelley to be very attentive to my needs. He was kind and compassionate. He also does a great job of explaining disease process and medication expectations. I highly recommend him.

This is the WORST doctor I've ever seen. I even had two other doctors in the community tell me they are so sorry I was ever sent to him. He only cares about the $$$ and that's it. He will NOT read your chart, spend time with you, or do things a caring doctor should. This man is a hazard and will be out of business if he continues practicing like this. He has no clue what he's doing, if you have a hard case. He's the old kind of doctor. If you don't have an easy illness, that shows up in a blood test, he tells you it's all in your head and nothing is wrong. He caused my condition to get so bad because he dismissed me and my condition. NEVER GO TO THIS MAN!!!!!

When I finally got in to see him, he spent about 5 minutes with me. He asked me a few questions and kind of looked me over. That's about it. I had an extensive chart sent to him. He told me I had nothing wrong with me. Come to find out I have a severe case of fibromyalgia. I've seen two doctors since seeing Dr. Kelley and they have no idea how he missed something like this. There are too many other good doctors to waste your time with bad ones like him!!

This doctor made it very clear that he was not interested in the history, why I was there or anything I said. And despite my bringing the diagnostics done at other places, he refused to even glance at them and only wanted to order repeat dignostics at his group's facility. He wanted them repeated at unecessary cost to me and the insurance company.

I went to Dr. Kelley because he was one of the few rheumatologists covered by my insurance at the time. I had arthritis-like symptoms and very swollen hands and feet. I also had manifestation on my skin. Very rough/thickened skin on my hands with cuts that opened up and a burning sensation, as well as spots on my elbows, knees and feet. D. Kelley told me I had to go see a dermatologist and that he had no idea how the skin could be related to my "arthritis-like" symptoms. I was loosing strength and it was obvious that there was something very very wrong with me. Dr' Kelly saw me several times and after we ran blood tests he gave me a "suggestive" diagnosis for Rheumatoid Arthritis followed by a treatment for this disease. Three months later I told him I wanted to stop taking the medication he gave me because it was not helping me at all, I was just getting worse. I was very debilitated at that point, I couldn't get up chairs anymore, I was having difficulties going up and down the… stairs and I had horrible pains at night. I kept insisting that we needed to continue searching but I lost credibility on him ands stopped going there. After I stopped the treatment with Dr. Kelley I got even worse, I started having troubles swallowing food and my voice started changing a bit. I finally went to my home country for treatment because we have public health system there. The doctors looked at me and nailed the diagnosis... the exames came a few days later to confirm: Dermatomyositis inflammation of the muscles and the skin! I stayed 28 days in the hospital, one week in Intensive Care, with a tube down my throat to deliver food to my stomach because my muscles didn't work anymore. I lost all my weight, all my muscle mass, barely could talk and walk. For you to have an idea of how bad the crisis was, this one enzyme the measures the amount of inflammation in the muscles that normally is at up to 190 at normal levels was over 8000. I was totally miss-lead by Dr. Kelley at the beginning and perhaps if he had better oriented me then, or even if this disease was not to be discovered right away because it's not so common, at least if Dr. Kelley had the humbleness to NOT simply put me in a treatment for something he wasn't even sure that I had, but sent me to another doctor or health center and advised me to keep searching all the suffering that I went through could have been prevented. After 10 months of recovery (three months of rehabilitation including physical therapy, phonoaudiology, nutritionist, psychologist, etc) I finally came back to Sarasota to return to my life, I had a lot of things to work on and clean up the mess caused by this disease in my life. I walked away from everything, I had no choice. After a while I looked for Dr. Kelley to share with him what I had gone through. I wanted to tell him what my final diagnosis was to even help others with future diagnosis. And guess what: he refused to see me or even talk to me. A phone call from him would have made me very happy. After I insisted, his nurse called me back and asked me to fax my diagnosis to them. Of course I refused it. I went there with my father and they told me at his office that he would only see me or talk to me if I paid for an appointment. I was so disappointed and sad at the same time. I would never recommend this doctor to anybody, I thought his attitude was very inhuman. I'm not sure if he was afraid of a lawsuit or what, but that was not my intention at all. All I wanted was to let him know what I went through so that others wouldn't suffer like I did.