I’m trying to get an appointment there with Dr. Lawton. The office hasn’t been very communicative and I’m getting frustrated. When the neuro in my home town sent the referral it included a fax of an image from the CTA scan. I don’t know why they didn’t just send the entire scan… Anyway, the image quality wasn’t good enough but they didn’t bother to tell anyone! We only found out because my husband called them after we didn’t hear anything for a while. I understand that they may be really busy but it would be nice to hear anything from them at all – like that they even got the referral and what we should expect next. Anyone have any experience with Barrow? Is it worth hanging in there for the appt?
Do a search here on Barrow, there used to be a lot of folks who recommended them. I don’t have any experience with them. Hopefully someone will reply who does. Also be patient, with the holiday weekend everything will be backlogged.
I did not see your post pop up so this is probably too late for you. If you would like to hear my story, message me back. Dr. Lawton did do my surgery, and I am well. However the care after surgery was not great. But I would rather have a great surgeon than a great care team. Also, because I went out of state, the surgeons here will not even schedule an appointment to look at me because “I am not their patient”. So when I had an emergency 2 weeks after surgery, I was admitted to ICU, given pain pills and discharged. I thought I might die. So that is the bad thing about going out of state.
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I apologize for my belated response. Hope that you have found your right hospital and doctor. I totally agree with @trekhard . I, too, was traveling from out of state and landed with Dr. Lawton’s team.
The hospital wasn’t topnotch (in my opinion), however, I had to say that maybe my case was ‘easy’? that I have only experienced some migraines (might even resulted from a prior auto accident) and scabs that refuse to leave my scalp until 9 months later.
I had a 8mm left ICA behind my left eye, wide neck which can’t use coilings. I am very sensitive to many medicines so thinking of the life long aspirins simply overwhelmed and stressed me out.
Honestly, I didn’t even take any pain meds after the craniotomy. If anything good comes from traveling far away for a craniotomy is that I get to stay in Hilton and my sister cooked ‘surgery recovery’ meals for me everyday. haha …
Barrow hospital isn’t the best place. But if a good surgeon does his job, maybe that’d offset some bad hospital situation.
(My nurses were supposed to clean my surgery wounds but she didn’t. I ended with thick scabs all over the incision line. It was very painful to take care of the thick scabs after 1-2 days.)
@bibewelove (sorry original poster to get away from your post). Wow, a weight feels like it has been lifted hearing someone else feel the same way. I was able to compare care because I had a supposed leak after surgery (according to CO surgeons- Barrow does not agree and says it was a blood remnants from surgery, but it was 2 weeks later). SO I basically had the experience of having a sub-arachonoid hemmorage, rushed to the ER here in CO. The nurses were SOOOOO much better. They held my hand as I went through having an angiogram and were just so warm. In phoenix, my family had to do all of my care, including icing me. (luckily we had read ahead about ice and knew to do it). My family flew back out to be by my side and definitely the entire family agrees, the care in CO was much better. But again, I’d rather have a great surgeon. Who knows if he really is better. @mkk- to get through to barrow email them through your portal once you have an account. They WILL call back 24-48 hours, usually the same day. It is just a resident on the phone, but they know a lot. Good luck and I hope all is well. Sorry to sidetrack the post, I hate when people do that! 
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Oh my, how do you feel now? Your CO doctors must have taken care of either the ‘remnants or leaks’ for you, right? Hope you are completely out of the woods now.
Yah, I remember that my nurse spent time to put herself makeups before the doctors (+residents) ‘visited’ ICU patients. Huh? I don’t blame her since she did have more time than other ICU nurses, and I do not need any meds except ‘wash’ and ‘clean’ my head.
Since you got complications, I’d say that that surgery is questionable. I learned that 'surgeon’s ’ #s are tallied by ‘if we die or not die’ on the table, not how we feel after we leave the operation tables.
I may be wrong, but that is how I learned by going to Barrow’s.
Barrow’s did return all my calls until 1.5 years later. 
Their residents are really nice when they called me back, one particular resident doctor went in details explaining things for me and I made sure to tell Dr. Lawton in the Portal message. The doctor’s office doesn’t have nice attitude. Originally they said to follow up in two years, I called them, the office just said, “no need” to follow up. Without explaining any reasons, she simply said “no need”. I guessed it was because I had an accident while boarding the plan from LA to Boston. A guy who were supposedly helping me to retrieve my overhead luggage hit my head on the ‘surgery’ side of the head. 
My MGH doctor decided to do CTA on me just to make sure I do not have any problems. Thank God nothing noticeable happened!!
I wish you the best luck and I think your family + great nurses shall be a very good cushion for you in case you need any help locally. Traveling to the superstar surgeons has its toll that we have to take as well.
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For all those members who are reading this the first time, perhaps to find a doctor and facility, take a look at this
In my experience, we need both a great doctor and a great RN staff. I’ve had extremely great and extremely very poor nursing in my various surgeries. I definitely want an RN who knows their job.
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Sorry, I kept coming back to this thread. I kind of knowing the entire history (from patient’s point of view, not the medical team’s point of view) of Barrow’s. Before, Lawton landed in Barrows (2017), they were lead by a world famous doctor Dr . Robert Spetzler. who trained Dr. Lawton.
That said, this old but healthy doctor finally retired in 2017. There, he recruited Lawton to be in charge of Barrow’s. Not sure if his ‘nurses’ team also changed, but I learned from the old master’s patients’ words that the new team didn’t do well compared to the previous ‘Gold standard’ team.
The only thing I knew was through my own surgery done in Barrows (no-par). I hope the situation changes today. I wish there are more patients who have been through Barrow recently would have some shares with us about their experiences.
Thank you, sorry that I side tracked.
BTW, I still love Dr. Lawton, his bedside manner (though a few minutes), and his surgery residents were my life-saving doctors.
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No need to apologize at all! Personal patient experience is how we find out about services. I once had a Resident who liked to kill me twice, the first time when he didn’t put enough pressure on the arterial plug, then later that same day when he told the RN that no one is allergic to gadolinium as I was going anaphylactic. He refused to give the order for my shot. I kept telling my Neurosurgeon, Dr. S. was not allowed anywhere near me. It finally dawned on me that Dr. S was not one of her students anymore and there are numerous Dr. S’s. I apologized and my Neurosurgeon said I didn’t have to worry about him anymore, he was gone. I truly hope that Dr. S is not a practicing Neurosurgeon.
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