Cancer Specialists of North Florida, Riverside

"This place and their malpractice led to my husband's slow death. He just died 28 Dec 23 in hospice care. Dr. Davis knew about the genetic markers for the tumor my husband had. Dr. Davis chose to go another route with chemo instead of something that would actually go after the cancer he had. When my husband's white blood cell count was low, he started my husband on a trial medicine which we did not in is was one. It had such horrible side effects and if we were aware if what they were, we would have said no. It wrecked his body. My husband already had a fragile liver and Dr. Davis knew it. My husband began having so many problems after that. He ended up vomiting constantly and nothing would stay down. He had symptoms of constipation. My husband talked about all his symptoms and was loosing so much weight. He ended up not being able to eat and kept vomiting up tons and tons of bile and gastric juices. He had been in St. Vincent's hospital 9 times since May when he was diagnosed. It was caught early. We were told he would be in remission right now. They did nothing about his malnutrition and said it MIGHT be because if the chemo or cancer but refused to do any investigation or any other exams. The Friday before Thanksgiving, he was released from the hospital. He began deteriorating over the weekend. On Monday I had to call 911. Monday was the day they were supposed to start him on a new chemo regimen that they felt more optimistic about. My husband was too malnourished and weak to be able to receive treatment. He had a dangerously low blood pressure, he was seriously dehydrated, and was seriously malnourished. He was admitted to then ICU/PCU. It wasn't until then that they started him on IV nutrition. Still no further investigation as to why he could not eat. He was admitted for 12 days. He was sent home on IV nutrition. A bit less than 24 hours later, I had to call 911 again. He was taken to another hospital. Within the first 3 hours, they found my husband had a blood clot in his lungs, one in his right leg, pneumonia, and a BOWEL BLOCKAGE!! He had all of that while he was at St Vincent's but they failed to diagnose any of it. They said his body was too frail to do any surgery to correct the bowel blockage. It was because of the bowel blockage that he was not able to keep anything down. There wasn't anything else the doctors could do to try and save his life. He was there for a week and then went into hospice care. He lasted for two and a half weeks in hospice care and passed away. All of the doctors that saw him there at St Vincent's from the oncology department that visited him on the floors while he was there to include Dr. Vaka ( who is a compassionless doom and gloom doctor), Dr Ayed, Dr. Fox, and the PAs that saw him all had a chance to do something to investigate further but did nothing and now he is dead because of them. Because of my husband's body also being wrecked and not having any nutrition to try to heal itself the IV nutrition threw off his body chemistry otherwise doing IV nutrition would have been fine but then it also wouldn't have been needed. If for whatever reason say if his jaw was sewn shut the IV nutrition wouldn't have caused more harm than good. My husband went from being 208 lb in May to 123lbs and possibly less than that December 2023. Please, for the sake of your loved ones please leave the cancer center of North Florida and go somewhere else!! We were supposed to start a family and we're about to adopt a child that we were matched up with and had been meeting for several weeks. I was starting to have to plan for retirement and settling down instead of constantly moving around every few years because of being in the military. My husband and I had so many plans together and we're supposed to grow old together. Because of all of the malpractice he is now dead at the age of 35. He didn't even make it to his 36th birthday which is in January. It wasn't even the cancer that killed him. I had to watch him die slowly and it was so hard!! I'm too young to be a widow."

"Dr. Vaka and Dr Chapman are so great as well as Zach and all the staff both in chemo and radiation therapy"

"This place (office in river city) is attempting to cheat and play the system. Ripping off insurance companies, and the customer. We were attempting to schedule a iron infusion and had an appointment set. After going back and forth they had told us we had to pay $900-$1000 out of pocket. We verified with our insurance company and this procedure is covered 100% of the cost after our $60 co pay. We found out they are coding us as a cancer patient needing chemotherapy when this is not the correct coding for this type of procedure. Even after talking directly to our insurance company they would not fix their mistake and said this is the way they do it. Terrible practice for a company especially as important as this. How long has this been going on for and how many people have been wronged?"

"I’ve been a patient of Dr. Vaka for some time now. If you are in need of an oncologist, I recommend you look further. It’s not only an issue with Dr Vaka, it’s all of the physicians and staff that work within this facility. There’s very little concern or empathy for the patient. There is a very high turnover rate of staff personnel at this particular location. (St Vincent’s riverside) Do your homework on just how poorly this location is managed. I have decided to seek care elsewhere. The good luck"

"Not impressed. Cindy was very rude to me on the phone. You would think she would be more compassionate. I've never seen such a disorganized new patient process."