Dr. Caroline Han, MD

My daughter was brought to an emergency room Dr.Han was working at due worsening symptoms. My daughter is actively suffering from a subdural hemorrhage (brain bleed) which in itself has been a horrific time in our family’s life. We were unfortunately assigned to this doctor in the emergency room and were met with hostility and aggression immediately. For clarification my daughter is only a year old so she doesn’t have verbal cues of when something is wrong, and as her mother I’d like to think that I’m able to assess her normal daily needs. The symptom that my daughter was brought in for was one episode of vomiting. The doctor immediately insisted that Naomi must be hungry because she is crying, because she “threw up all of her food and has an empty belly.” It was 3am in the morning and my daughter sleeps through the night. Again, as her mother I knew the difference between her cries. Prior to this emergency room visit, my daughter was hospitalized for a week with another hospital due to Kaiser being unable to adequately care for my daughter, meaning that the hospital records were not properly transmitted over and things had fallen through the cracks such as her prior MRI and CT scans. (This is relevant for a later portion of my experience). She ordered a CT scan for my daughter, and not that this was her doing, but they lacked the proper equipment to successfully restrain my daughter. Instead of finding a humane alternative.. my daughters head was strapped to the table with surgical tape. Around her head under the table.. not once but SEVERAL times. We get the results back from the CT scan and after hours the doctor comes in and states that my daughters condition is worsening. Keep in mind that this doctor had not been apart of the original care team who had first treated my daughter and had no access to view the prior scans. She knowingly gave me a false sense of fear by giving an untrue prognosis. We knew that worsening bleeding meant my daughter would need to be transferred to a higher level of care to have neurosurgery. Again, fear and panic washed over my mind with this news. I waited for two hours, with my supposedly critically ill child with no sense of monitoring (blood pressure, labs, O2,ECG) and was left with uncertainty. The doctor then comes back AN HOUR AND A HALF later telling me she is just then reaching out to the original care team to determine my daughters plan of action where she then learns that my daughters scan is not getting worse, in fact she’s progressing far better than they would’ve hoped for. I begin to express my frustration to this doctor who has no sense of emotion regulation, empathy, or compassion. Dr. Han cut me off mid sentence, got up and stomped her feet in a similar instance a toddler would and stormed out of the room, and that’s what I was left with. By no means did she show any sense of professionalism or empathy towards me or my daughter. I am throughly disappointed and disgusted by this visit and will never be returning to Kaiser again. This was an incredibly challenging and distressing situation for myself and my daughter. I was already experiencing a difficult time with my daughters health, and was overwhelmed to be met with such aggression and hostility. Please take your children or loved ones to another practicing physician.