Dong Xiang, MD

"Dong Xiang was my father's oncologist when he was hospitalized in San Gabriel Valley Medical Center for 7 weeks (3/18-5/3). My father had a pancreatic mass and elevated CA19-9 when he was admitted so they suspected my father may have pancreatic cancer. During the 7 weeks, it was extremely challenging to get hold of Dong XIang to get an update on my dad's condition and treatment plan. I called every day and asked the nurse to notify him to call me, but wasn't able to get a response. There was also no way to leave a message for him as his office will ask me to just call back the second day. Even the hospitalist expressed the challenge in getting a response from him. The two times I was able to talk to him, the answers we received were "It is a mystery" or "It is a puzzle", with no hypothesis of what may be the cause or any plan to properly treat my father. My father started having platelet drop around 3/27 and when it was around 10, Dong Xiang ordered platelets for transfusion and when we asked about the plan, he simply said, "if your father doesn't get transfusion, he may die any moment from internal bleeding. But if that is what you want, I support you." I can not believe a doctor would say that to a patient's family. My father's platelet count restored to around 50 for a week, then it started dropping again on 4/17 and all Dong Xiang did was to keep increasing prednisone and keep transfusing platelets with no treat plan provided. We eventually asked the hospitalist if we should do bone marrow biopsy to rule out bone marrow issue and the hospitalist agreed but he was not able to get an answer from Dong Xiang until 5 days later. At that time, my father's platelets had dropped so much that Dong Xiang had to order three units of platelet transfusion in order for this hospital to do the biopsy. Before when my dad's platelets were stable around 50, the hospitalist then (Dr. Kristofer Wills) had suggested Dong Xiang to come over for a bone marrow biopsy since my dad also had anemia. Dong Xiang refused to come and asked us to see him outpatient for it after we are discharged. If he had come when needed, my father did not have to go through unnecessary platelet transfusion. Later Dong Xiang tried to boost our platelet count by keep transfusing platelets and we asked to speak to him before the transfusion but no response and the hospital transfused against our will. After a week our bone marrow biopsy showed no significant finding so I wanted to talk to Dong Xiang about prednisone taper plan as my father has been on it for more than 6 weeks at that point. Again, he told the hospitalist that we should just keep using prednisone and follow up with him outpatient after we are discharged. It is hard to understand why we could only see our oncologist outpatient when we are hospitalized in the hospital. Our hospitalist helped to arrange a second opinion oncologist (Dr. Ronald Tang and Dr. Weber Chen) to see my father. Both of them went through my dad's file thoroughly (Dr. Tang checked the blood under microscope and Dr. Chen checked all the images), they both agreed my dad does not have a blood disorder and the prednisone is not helping the platelet count from a hematologist standpoint. They both expressed concerns about the mass in my father's pancreas and Dr. Chen was so shocked that nothing was done for 7 weeks. If we had gotten Dr. Chen or Dr. Tang from the beginning or even a few weeks earlier, my dad would not have to suffer all these delay in treatment. We do not even know what effects he would get from prolong, unneeded steroid treatment. We eventually got my dad out of San Gabriel Valley Medical Center and went to St Jude, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two days later. If we had trusted Dong Xiang or the hospital I don't even know if we could come out alive. Please avoid Dong Xiang at all cost, he is a doctor who puts financial gain before patient's health and wellbeing."