It's official: Dr. Tewari moving to Mt. Sinai

The official press release: Leading Robotic Prostate Cancer Surgeon and Researcher to Head Mount Sinai’s Urology Department.

Becoming chairman of the Urology Department is a bigger title/role than his position at Weill-Cornell.

Nearly his entire team is coming with him (although the press releases makes no mention of that).

-Gedman

He was the head of the Center for Prostate Cancer at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Medical Center. He was there since 2004, I believe.

Mt. Sinai is roughly 1 mile away from his current location at Weill-Cornell. All of his patients will receive a letter from him in a few days with details about how they can move their records (etc) if they want to continue with him at Mt. Sinai.

-Gedman

I just found the press release and was about to post it.

They are WAYYYY behind in not notifying patients about this. Imagine you are a patient scheduled for surgery with Dr. Tewari in two or three weeks, and you don't read this forum. You would still have NO clue about what is going on....as of a week ago, they didn't have the insurance issues figured out. For me, Mt. Sinai is out of network, while Cornell/NYP is in network....what if you were in this position, and you would need to suddenly find a few thousand extra dollars, or they couldn't tell you that they had made the arrangements to be in-network ye?

It is NOT necessarily a good move for patients, until they tell us the insurance issues, which they have NOT done. It seems pretty obvious that Mt. Sinai wanted to fill the gap left by Samadi's departure and they lured Tewari away. I have heard from other NYC hospital doctors that Mt. Sinai is definitely "on the move" in trying to lure big doctors, and is willing to spend to get them.

Clearly, a good move for Dr. Tewari, but it remains to be seen how this plays out for the patients. Again, Dr. Tewari is an excellent surgeon, and I would recommend him, but his office is clearly not good at communicating, and this is just another example.

No letter yet for me. My next appointment not until November, so I thought maybe they were sending them out in order. This is not being handled well at all. I am betting it was $$ that Mt. Sinai used to lure Tewari, and they don't have enough time and staff to handle the transition. Not a good start.......

We should also take bets on what surgeon New York Presbyterian will lure to fill the Tewari void.....wouldn't surprise me if the musical chairs continue. Don't really see how we patients benefit from any of this.

 I called his office a few times, left messages, ect. Still no call back and still no letter. He is a great surgeon and I have always valued his advice not only on surgical issues but also on oncological issues (as a sanity check of sorts), but communication and patient servicing has always been an issue. He never had the resources at Cornell to properly handle patient follow-ups, tried to fit all of his thousands on patients in on Fridays. He spends 4 days in surgery and one day seeing patients. Always had to wait hours on Friday to see him and his visits have gotten shorter and shorter.

But I still like him and value his insight. I will continue to see him at Mt. Sinai, but confess that I have reduced the frequency of my visits to perhaps once/year   (I see my oncologist 1/month!!!!)

The life of a "rock star surgeon".

My surgeon, Dr. Patel, is the same way. He is in surgery 4 days a week and sees patients on Wednesday. Sometimes 1 to 2 hour waits to see him, dozens of patients both new and follow up in his office all day long.

One time I had an appointment for 7:50 a.m. Great, I have the first appointment of the day. I drove the 3 hours to his office, leaving at 4:00 a.m., got there a little after 7:00 and decided to go ahead and see if I could get into his office at that hour. I surprised to find at least 8 patients waiting already in the waiting room. It is a good thing they supply snacks and beverages.

But with all the patients he has, he always talks to you like he really knows your case, the size of your tumor and the side effects you are experiencing without looking at his notes.

His office staff lacks in communication, getting answers to questions and not calling you back quickly.

Small price to pay for having the one of the best in the WORLD!

The results speak for themselves

Bill from Florida

Those midtown offices are fantastic. When i first visited Samadi there I was forced to take my entire family, wife, kids, mother. I was shaken after visit and my kids noticed. So I crossed the street and took them into FAO and the Uggz store. Then a short walk through Central Park. Fantastic offices.

Mount Sinai has also made it a little difficult for me to have my files moved to Samadi's new place. I just think it's an administrative nightmare. They also wrote me an initial letter saying "we're still great, stay with us". But I think we all agree that we need continuity.

Enjoy your new office visits, a great spot in NYC.

My experience was a little different. When I called new office, never got a call back, even after several days. Had to call them again, as clearly they were overwhelmed once the letters from NYP went out. Seems like Dr. Tewari will be in-network for me on my insurance, even though Dr. Samadi and Mount Sinai were out-of-network....no one seemed certain about that. But, made my appointment for 11/1, last Friday.

Dr. Tewari is now in Dr. Samadi's old offices in midtown, since they are Mount Sinai practice offices. I had a consult with Dr. Samadi as a potential surgeon back in February, just a few weeks after my initial diagnosis. It was very odd to be back in that location, and brought back lots of "scared, newly diagnosed cancer patient pre-surgery" memories.

Learned some interesting things from Dr. Tewari about everyone's recent moves.....according to him, Dr. Samadi wasn't given the chairmanship of urology at Mount Sinai, and that was part of his reason for leaving. So, Dr. Tewari was offered the chairmanship, and it seems some better facilities (I think this related to research facilities) at Mount Sinai. Dr. Tewari wasn't allowed to send out letters to his patients after the move, so that is why we only got the letter from NYP. It's still unclear what staff members of Dr. Tewari's are making the move, but "most have done so." PA Mae did make the move, although I met with a different PA who had been at Mount Sinai prior to Dr. Tewari's arrival. Overall, a pretty good patient experience at the new place, but they are still working out some kinks.

Also, I don't want this to turn into one of those Surgeon A vs. Surgeon B threads, please. Both Drs. Samadi and Tewari are highly regarded surgeons. I am just trying to give my impressions of a patient of Dr. Tewari's who has had an office visit since the transition.

PS - if you had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Tewari at NYP, you need to call the new offices to reschedule the appointment.