When my 13-year-old daughter started getting food stuck in her throat, my husband and I knew we needed help to figure out what was going on. With the assistance of her pediatrician, we were sent to Dr. U, who thought she needed to have an EGD done. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, her procedure was rescheduled twice.
The day of her procedure I received a call from Ellie, the manager of pre-op stating they were having trouble finding my daughter's COVID specimen. After several phone calls back and forth with Ellie (she actually gave me her cell phone number!), she told me my daughter would need to be COVID swabbed again. She explained it would need to be nasopharyngeal due to the time constraints or we could reschedule the procedure if we would rather that she not have a nasopharyngeal swab done.
At that point, my husband, daughter and I were almost to the hospital and ready to get the EGD rolling. Ellie asked us to get there as fast as we could so she could get the COVID swab done and sent to the lab. We checked into admitting and actually met Ellie in the admitting department after we were registered. She walked us down to my daughter's room and then collected the swab herself! I was then told by other staff members Ellie walked the specimen to the lab and personally handed it off to ensure it would be tested and resulted in time.
Ellie was kind, considerate, and greeted us with a smile each time she had an interaction with us. I was so impressed by her demeanor on what was a very stressful day for my family. In fact, every person that we came into contact with that day was absolutely amazing. We could not have asked for a better experience. From admitting to the physician that did the procedure, we were definitely treated with the greatest care and love. I am so thankful for the staff at SFMC. Thank you.