Dr. Randall T Espinoza, MD

Difficult to make appointments and doesn’t return calls

I have a very dark story about this man who calls himself Dr. Espinoza. I also have a lot of issues with the entire ECT department in general. I have suffered from depression my entire life. Nothing ever worked. I tried over 20 medications, TMS, Ketamine infusions… nothing worked. Then I heard of ECT, I researched extensively and for the first time in my life I thought there would be hope. I scheduled a consultation with the ECT department at ucla. Then I was scheduled to begin. I began my first 6 sessions. Then abruptly on a weekend unfortunately I had to go to the ER for something unrelated and news about my ER stay reached the UCLA ECT department. After that they refused to take me back mid way though my treatment. In fact they shared my private ER medical records with the entire staff. The secretary even knew why I had gone to the ER. I know that it is against HIPPA rules, and that no tech or secretary has the right to see my personal medical records. To make this short, they put… me, a mentally ill patient with severe anxiety through a rollarcoaster. For three months they played with me. First they refused to return my calls, and this is after the board of doctors had agreed for me to come back. So for two weeks I was left in a state of severe anxiety. Remember I am a psychiatric patient, so these three months of waiting for someone like me was the worst most tragic nightmare anyone could experience. They played with me everyday. Everyday it was something new. They wanted this paper or that paper. They just kept leading me on as I suffered everyday. Finally after three months of pushing through and forcing them to give me an appointment to come back I found out on the day of my treatment that it was canceled. Simply because I didn’t confirm the day before. Mind you- the appointment was set in stone and I had taken a PCR test at ucla the day before which would clearly show that I was definitely going to arrive at my appointment. When I got to the ECT dept the day of my treatment they then took me in a room with this Dr. Espinoza. He then began to falsely accuse me of horrific things that were absolutely not true. For example saying that I’ve only seen my personal Pychiatrist twice in my life- even though I’ve been seeing him for 3 years regularly! When I tried to defend myself or explain to Dr Espinoza, he just called me a liar and refused to listen. He even accused me of being the type of person that blames my problems on others. I mentioned I was out of town and that’s why I didn’t get the confirm call- and he proceeded to say “then we’ll if you can go on vacation than you must be fine” an incredibly unprofessional thing to say because he had no idea why I was even out of town. To go on… he called me a liar, would not let me defend myself and made presumptions on who I am as a person. He is the most unempathetic, the CRUELEST doctor or even human I have ever encountered. He spoke to me like I was nothing. He looked at me like I was nothing. People like this should not ever be allowed in the mental health field. I come from a place of kindness, but I am still not over the emotional trauma that he put me through. He should not even be allowed to work with mental health patients because he has no heart. Please I warn you before choosing ECT at ucla with Dr Espinoza, he is one of the cruelest and most unfair men I have ever encountered. Do your research and make sure that he will not be your doctor because the last thing he cares about is humanity.

Dr. Espinoza's lack of compassion is unforgivable given his chosen profession. He does not return phone calls and his bedside manner is not consistent with the care that you would expect from someone at UCLA

Dr. Espinoza's compassion is so much a part of the man it creaes an aura of complete trust...a crtcal element in the treatment of people suffeing mental illness. Unfortunately, I believe his responsilities as chief of staff severely limit his time to see patients. Perhaps a consult is possible? Based on my expeience with Dr.Espinoza you could not do better. NR