Dr. Marcus Alan Neubauer, MD

Just an overall great doctor!

Overall, I am very pleased with my experiences with Dr. Neubauer over the last two years. The primary concern is that the lack of an electronic medical record means he takes longer to remember me and doesn't always have the most recent, or all, of my records. Secondly, the wait time in his office is anywhere from 15-30 minutes. I am very pleased with his throughness and the time spent with me.

This doctor was the first oncologist my Mother was referred to after being told she had stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, by a surgeon who didn't know what he would find when he removed her gallbladder. He had told her she had a year to live.The next day Mom remained an inpatient at Shawnee Mission Medical Center for more tests. Neubauer entered her room at 7:30am, flipped on the light (she was in that shell shocked sleeping-but-not-really state that only a person who had just gotten this news could understand), sat down in a chair next to her and told her, yes, the diagnosis is confirmed, I estimate you have roughly a year to live, have a nice day. And he got up, flipped the light off, closed the door and left. No "I'm sorry," no hand on the shoulder, nothing. Whatever she had left emotionally was utterly, completely, 100% destroyed. He may as well have plunged a knife into her right then and there.We lost her 4 1/2 months later.I was convinced then, as now, that there wasn't… much anyone could have done medically. It was one of those horrible cases where lung cancer took hold and spread before any symptoms were detected. I do NOT blame this doctor, nor the one she switched to (who was *marvelous*), for the fact that we lost her. That fate seemed to have been determined long before we even knew she had cancer. In fact, if she were sitting here now, she would say it was her own fault for smoking her whole life.I understand that oncology is a difficult field for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that so many patients are lost. But Doctor, if you can't show even the slightest bit of compassion for patients who are just learning that their lives are unexpectedly about to end, then do the world a favor and find a line of work that doesn't involve patient interaction.The surgeon who removed her gallbladder, by all rights, didn't need to have any more to do with her once she was referred to an oncologist. Yet, for the rest of her inpatient stay he continued to stop by at least once each day just to talk, to give her frank information with a gentle voice, and just to let her know someone in the medical community cared. It's too bad her oncologist couldn't have delivered that message even once.