Our Experience with Olivia Paetz, MD

Olivia Paetz, MD Columbus, Ohio OH License # 57.256381 Resident at Nationwide Children’s https://npidb.org/doctors/allopathic_osteopathic_physicians/internal-medicine_207r00000x/1255190310.aspx You might be searching for Dr. Olivia Paetz right now because you are considering her as your physician. We had a tragic misfortune of dealing with Dr. Paetz, and are sharing our story here as you consider this doctor.

TLDR: Dr. Paetz did not communicate with us, she frivolously initiated a process that assumed that we, as parents, are abusing our child, and in the process actually puts our child in harms way

I’m writing this from Columbus, Ohio, where Dr. Paetz practices medicine at Nationwide Children’s. My wife and I recently moved to Ohio and wanted to find a pediatrician for our nine month old son. We managed to make an appointment at the Nationwide Primary Care clinic at 1405 South High Street in Columbus. If we knew we would be seeing a resident, we wouldn’t make the appointment, but Nationwide is not forthright about this. We want to establish a long term relationship with a doctor, and a resident by default is not that. We brought in our son in the morning to the Nationwide Primary Care clinic at 1405 South High Street in Columbus. We had no medical reason to visit, we just wanted to check in with a doctor to see if that doctor would be a good fit for our family. So far, this decision is one of the worst decisions of our lives, and one that has put us through 48 hours of hell, with no end in sight.

The initial visit

When we were getting our baby undressed to his diaper so that he could be examined, we noticed odd marks on the bottom of his left foot that were reddish. We noted this to Dr. Paetz because that rash was new to us that morning. She completed her examination that included looking at his foot. She stated "I wonder if this is marker" and looked for something to wipe his foot with. She denied knowing what the discoloration could be and advised my wife and me to "monitor it" for changes. It was at this time that she stated "I am going to take a photo in order to have something to compare it to for the future.”After Dr. Paetz left the room to get information about the COVID vaccine for our son, she came back into the room and shared that she was going to have her "supervising doctor" look at our son’s foot. It was at this point that we became aware that Dr. Paetz was a resident. At no time during her introduction to us did she state this and at no time during the scheduling process was this stated. Dr. Paetz's supervising physician, Dr. White, came in to the room to examine our son’s foot. She completed what looked like the same examination as Dr. Paetz and stated "I have no idea what this could be". Dr. Paetz reiterated the recommendation to "keep an eye on it" and bring our son back in if any major changes occurred. This was it. Two doctors looked at a weird rash, didn’t seem worried, and sent us home.

The phone call

We literally made nothing of this visit. We already knew Nationwide is not a place for us, as they are deceptive about who your doctor will be, and are not forthright about who will you be seeing. In a few hours, my wife received a phone call from a social worker at the High Street location office. She stated that, "after speaking with the doctors who examined our son, it was determined that a report has to be filed to protective services.” She reported that the "injury" on our son’s foot "did not have an explanation" and therefore needed to be reported as suspected abuse. She informed my wife that she needed to go to Nationwide's emergency room to have our son examined. She stated at this time that x-rays would likely need to be done to determine if old fractures or new injuries could be seen. She requested that my wife give her a time frame of when she would be brining our son to the emergency room. He was taking a nap at the time and I was at work, so my wife informed them it would be in the afternoon.

The forced emergency room visit

We went to Nationwide Children’s hospital when I got off work, around 5pm. We waited around three minutes before being seen initially by two nurses who took his vitals and asked us why we were there. We were then told to have a seat to wait for the doctors. We waited close to 45 minutes-1 hour before being told "we have a room for you" and were brought to a room in the back. Again, this is in the hospital, in the emergency room. There is no emergency. The “injury” is a rash that does not give our son any discomfort. It is not a bruise, he seems entirely unbothered when you touch it. Shortly after being brought into the room a nurse came in and took our son’s vitals. Shortly after she left another nurse came in and took his vitals for the second time. Around 20 minutes later Dr. Nguyen came in and introduced herself as a resident. She asked "has anyone explained why you're here" to which we responded "not really.” Dr. Nguyen explained that due to concern over what is on our son’s foot, because there's no "explanation" for the "bruise" (though, again, it is not a bruise in any meaningful definition of a word), it was necessary to complete an examination. At this time we asked what the examination needed to entail and Dr. Nguyen reported it would include blood work and X-rays. I reported concern over doing X-rays for the marks on our son’s foot as they did not seem to be medically necessary. Dr. Nguyen shared "I understand your concerns" and my wife specifically asked what the risks are of doing X-rays. No answer was provided. Dr. Nguyen completed an examination of our son that included her looking at his foot as well as doing other basic exam procedures (looking at his eyes, looking in his ears, looking in his mouth). She did not ask us to take our son’s onesie off but she did lift it up and looked at his trunk and back. Dr. Nguyen stated she would consult with a team (I believe she called it the child assessment team) to determine if X-rays were still being recommended given that she deemed what was on his foot to be "a discoloration.”   Shortly after Dr. Nguyen left, Dr. Taylor White came in and introduced herself. She is the worst, condescending, disingenuous medical professional I have ever dealt with in my life. She looked at our son’s foot and explained it was being described as "a lesion" in our son’s chart. Dr. White stated she was recommending that blood work be done "to rule out any blood clotting issues" and that X-rays should be performed on our son’s entire body to determine "if there are any new or old fractures to his bones". At this point in the examination, a social worker from the hospital came into the room and introduced herself as such. I expressed concern and upset at the physicians who examined our son’s at the primary care office that morning, specifically Dr. Olivia Paetz, stating that neither of them stated any concerns of child abuse at the time of the visit. Dr. White and the social worker confirmed that, upon the completion of our visit, Drs. Paetz and White submitted the photo they took of our son’s foot to other physicians within the Nationwide team for inquiry given they were not aware what the discoloration represented and it was the recommendation of those physicians, who also could not offer an explanation, that a protection report be made due to possible abuse. Dr. Taylor White was asked by myself and my wife what the medical reason for completing the X-rays as it related to the "lesion" on our son’s foot. Dr. White stated "it is medically necessary to determine if there are any previous fractures that may have healed.” We again asked if there was anything in seeing previously healed fractures that would help us understand what was wrong with his foot and were told "we don't know if he's had any past fractures due to lack of medical records.” Again, note that none of this is really about the rash on his foot, and at no point are they expressing any concern over that. All they are doing is assuming we’re abusing our son because there is something on his foot they can’t recognize. It is NOT an injury, because it clearly doesn’t hurt him, they saw no other bruising or any sign of abuse on his body. They also made zero attempts to reach out to our previous family doctor who knows us, and saw our son since literally the day he was born. At this time my wife and I reported that our son was being seen by the same pediatrician since birth prior to us moving to Columbus and we both denied that our son had ever shown any signs of having had fractures. We stated the following "Let's call a spade a spade, we need to do X-rays to prove we aren't abusing my son.” Both Dr. Taylor White and the social worker denied this. Dr. Taylor White, at least two more times but possibly three, continued to explain X-rays are needed to determine if there have been any previous fractures to our son’s bones. We were informed "this is up to you" by Dr. White on if we wanted to proceed with both the blood tests and the X-rays. Dr. White informed my husband and I "you can have some time to talk this over privately". My wife stated: "I don't want anyone to think my son is being abused" and reported her agreement, to which I agreed as well. My wife and I asked that we be present in the room with him while our son was getting X-rays and were informed by the social worker “Not every parents wants to because they don’t want to see their child cry”. We were informed that “they will “do some bloodwork" on our son and that "while they're doing the bloodwork, they will put in the order for the X-rays" by Dr. White. After Dr. White left, the social worker provided us with paperwork that was previously emailed to my wife by the social worker at the primary care office explaining why a protection report was made and what would happen as a result. She also provided paperwork on the X-ray process which stated that children would need to be completely immobile which means they would need to be strapped down to the table and put in positions/restraints that kept them completely still. She left the room and shortly after two nurses came in with the materials to draw blood. One nurse had a tourniquet that she used on our son’s right arm and my wife said "I'm surprised you're not taking it from his foot" and was informed that "it's harder as they get older to take blood from the foot". The first nurse made an attempt to find a vein and had the other nurse wrap our son up in the blanket to keep him immobile. The first nurse made attempts to draw blood by putting a needle/IV in his right hand and was only able to obtain a small amount of blood for one vial. She stated she would call in a medic to try the other hand. A male medic came in and introduced himself. He and two nurses made attempts to draw blood on our son’s left hand through a needle/IV. During this attempt the medic explained "when a baby cries, their veins constrict...this can cause a vein to blow" and he stated he would wait and try again. To recap: to address a rash on a foot that didn’t hurt my son, they were now hurting him. He was screaming and crying for close to 30 minutes. Furthermore, at no point prior to them drawing blood were we informed that the process would be painful and stressful for our child. The male nurse made attempts and was finally successful. Upon drawing our son’s blood, he then proceeded in putting in an IV line in the location he drew the blood. He and the nurses then left the room and told us to wait for the doctor. It needs to be noted that throughout this process of having his blood drawn our son was very upset, crying real tears, and clearly in pain and distress. When the medic and nurses left, we expressed concern to one another with my wife that an IV line was placed in our son’s hand and both confirmed this was not something we were told would happen. This was not informed consent in any meaning of the term. At this time, after being there for several hours, and after seeing that they were actually harming our son chasing abuse that didn’t exist, only because of a rash they didn’t identify, and continued to treat our son medically with a lack of informed consent to us, his parents, we both agreed we would not be doing the X-rays. We had zero trust in the Nationwide medical team and zero confidence that they would not continue to needlessly expose him to pain and distress. We informed the social worker and, after sitting in the exam room for close to 30 minutes, we asked a nurse at the nurse's station to have someone come and remove the IV line from our son’s hand. A nurse came in to do so and we asked her why an IV line was put in. She stated it was to make it easier if medications needed to be administered "since we already found the vein". At that time my wife informed her that we would like to leave and asked what we needed to do so. She reported she would get the Dr. to come in; several minutes later Dr. White came back into the room and shared nothing came back to show concern with our son’s bloodwork. My wife and I expressed discontent over the blood drawing process and my wife specifically stated lack of informed consent over him having an IV line put in. Dr. Taylor White stated that we would need to sign a document stating we were leaving the emergency room "against medical advice" because we weren't completing the X-rays. She stated she didn’t have any medical reasons to conduct X-Rays. It was obvious to us, given they were always entirely unrelated to the rash on his foot. We couldn’t leave without signing a form saying we were leaving “against medical advice” even though Dr. Taylor White explicitly stated there were no medical reasons to keep us there. My wife signed the document and stated "dissatisfied with care" as the reason for leaving. This is our experience with the Nationwide Children’s system and all of this started because of Dr. Olivia Paetz. Frivolously initating processes that have deeply negative impact on people’s lives, causing days of psychological distress, and subsequent having to deal with Child Protective Services. All of this as a result of a visit made to establish a relationship with a family doctor, where both parents were present. We will likely be dealing with consequences of Dr. Paetz’s decision for a while. My wife is devastated, I’m devastated, and the only pain and suffering my son experienced was not as a result of the rash, but as a result of the actions of the Nationwide “medical” professionals. It is now two days after our day from hell. The rash seems to be fading. It is still undiagnosed because Nationwide made it very clear they were uninterested in this. Instead, my son’s hands are bruised up from the blood drawing process in the ER, my wife is devastated, and I regret ever moving to Ohio because it would have never happened with our previous family doctor. Now, there is some file somewhere on our family, because of the incompetence of Nationwide’s staff, and their blind following of their bureaucratic rules over the well-being of my son. As a patient dealing with a behemoth like Nationwide, and its individual doctors, you have little recourse. All you can do is share your story and hope other people don’t needlessly go through hell.

If you’re considering seeing Dr. Olivia Paetz and Nationwide Children’s, I hope you think about our experience and ask yourself if you want this for yourself and your family.