Dr. Robert Alan Arciero, MD

I needed an ACL reconstruction after a ski accident. While waiting for surgery, I lost the ability to straighten my knee. I searched for reasons, and learned that it would most likely be from a build up of scar tissue in the knee joint. I flagged the inability to straighten my knee to Dr Arciero and asked him to make sure any access scar tissue was removed during reconstruction surgery. I also asked him repeatedly to walk me through the procedure so I knew what was ahead. However, I was in for a surprise after the surgery. Firstly, I cannot feel from the top of my thigh, down to my toes, and have had to end my athletic lifestyle because I just can’t control the muscles in that leg anymore, it is a struggle to even walk. Immediately after waking me from surgery, a young man in scrubs came in with some plier looking tool, asking me to sign a paper. I had just woken up from anaesthesia and felt high and giggly. I had to ask what I was signing. He said that it was a waiver for cutting my… nerve. Dr Arciero never told me this was going to happen. I asked the man in scrubs what he was talking about, he said that it would relieve my pain and that there was only a 10% chance I wouldn’t regain feeling and that applies to mostly old people. Once again I was high, and shouldn’t have been asked to make any decisions or sign any wavier in that state. I giggled ok sure and he clipped something in my thigh. Only then did he give me a bottle of pain medication! So whatever pain I was in wasn’t even being treated with medication before they made the extreme procedure of destroying a nerve. I should have been warned that I wasn’t yet on pain killers before I was asked if I needed to be relieved of pain. Other doctors I saw after the surgery told me that nerve cutting was completely unnecessary and felt very bad for me. I believe Dr Arciero’s assistant did that to me just to be able to bill the insurance company for it. I was not warned ahead of time of this ambush treatment. If the risk of not being able to control my leg was explained to me properly, while mentally capable of making the decision then I would have refused being offered any type of nerve cutting. On top of that, the scar tissue was left behind in my knee. I never regained the ability to totally straighten it after the surgery with Dr Arciero. I was in daily pain just walking and all the muscle in my left leg deteriorated to nothing. I had a massively muscular right leg that I depended on, and a peg of a left leg. I kept bringing up this problem to the UConn team but no one seemed to care anymore. The physio I received at UConn was far below subpar, after 5 weeks I was still not able to straighten my leg and was discharged being told that I would eventually get better. I never did, so I sought out a private physio who changed my life for the better. He suggested I get a second MRI, I did, and surprise, all the scar tissue was left in my knee and caused a cyclops lesion that needed to be removed with a second surgery. I eventually went to another surgeon who was able to remove the lesion and I was then able to straighten my leg - after almost two years of walking in pain daily. In the end, I had to pay thousands of dollars for additional 3 years of intense private physio, cortisol shots, MRIs and a second surgery. I had to have electric shocks to my quadricep for months during physio to try to regain the connection between my brain and the feeling of controlling my leg. Getting the surgery with Dr Arciero was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It has totally destroyed my athletic lifestyle, I still can’t feel my left leg and so therefore cannot control the muscles. I am looking to have a 3rd surgery to try to reconnect the nerve that was cut after Dr Arciero finished his surgery. It is now four years later and I am still struggling from what should have been a simple and straightforward surgery.

Dr. Arciero treated me for a broken and dislocated ankle and multiple fractures to my fibula. He suggested not casting the breaks and it was a decision that greatly hastened my recovery and mobility. I was walking normally within six weeks with no cane or limp and was even able to rise up on my toes a little, which was astounding, and I required no rehabilitation to what would normally have been an injury that would have taken a long time to heal. I still have 'some pretty serious hardware' in my leg and always will holding the pieces together, but I think my recovery was my faster and more complete due to his approach to my injury. He was caring and took real ownership of my surgery, taking my files with him personally the night before and bringing them to the O.R. the next morning.

From making the first appointment to the next was so easy and simple. Took time to explain diagnosis which was so accurate which 2 other doctors missed to the surgery was the easiest I have experienced with a physician/office before. Showed care and concern and was the utmost professional.

I have seen over 5 different Dr.s in the knee field and he is by far the nicest, most professional and competent. Excellent referral from my local Dr.