Cardiac Surgeons - Newport Beach, CA

"The following information is only being provided so that you can do your own due diligence with this surgeon. If we truly had no issues with this surgeon, we would not be submitting this type of review. Having said that, my family and I did not have a good experience or outcome with this surgeon and thus we cannot recommend him at all. A close family member needed an aortic valve replacement and had Dr. Caffarelli just stuck with that our loved one would still be alive and we wouldn't need to write this review. Instead, Dr. Cafarelli decided at the last minute to add on a completely unnecessary, very risky procedure called septal myectomy, which due to the risks, very few cardiac surgeons do. He provided very vague information about the procedure and we learned after the fact that he himself has very little experience with septal myectomy. Not surprisingly, he botched the procedure and in trying to fix his mistake he also cut a chord of the tricuspid valve and had to repair that as well. It seems that he was so in over his head in the O.R. with his mistakes that he had to call in another surgeon. Unfortunately, due to all the mistakes and extended surgery time, our loved one left the O.R. in poor condition which would continue to deteriorate in the ICU and eventually led to death. To this day, we struggle to understand why Dr. Caffarelli would chose to perform a very high risk procedure that he has limited experience with at the last minute in an attempt to fix an issue that he himself estimates was only 5% of our loved ones problem! The only conclusion that we can come up with is that its possible Dr. Caffarelli did the septal myectomy procedure more for the benefit of himself than for the benefit of his patient? Mo matter what Dr. Caffarelli tells you about this case, before, during or after, surgery, nothing can take away from the fact that he botched a surgical procedure that he has limited experience with and that didn't need to be done and this directly resulted in the poor condition of our loved one, post surgery and then death. Also, after the fact , in speaking to our own cardiologist, that he never refers patients to Dr. Caffarelli or the Raney Zusman Group and he felt this way before he learned about what Dr. Caffarelli did to our loved one. The response from Hoag lacked any sympathy and was pathetic at best, but finally after a year of trying to get more answers, they did send us a letter that following their own "internal investigation" they came to the conclusion that there "there may be opportunities for improving care" and that Dr. Caffarelli was up for peer review. Naturally, we are in no position to tell you what surgeon you can use and if you are working with Dr. Caffarelli or considering it, the only advice we can give based upon our experience is, please don’t let this guy fool you. Ask a lot of questions, challenge him and absolutely get a second opinion. Don’t let his ego take unnecessary risks with you the way we believe he did with our loved one. A cardiac surgeon that reviewed this case, told us, “being a good cardiac surgeon is not just knowing what to do but also knowing what not to do”. Something that, apparently, Dr. Caffarelli has yet to learn. Please use caution. "