This surgeon is recognized as a leader in her field. This is what makes it so hard to understand how she got so far treating patients like crap. It could be that it was only me, but I have a feeling that it's her demeaner and her ingrained personality that is more the issue. I had a tonsillectomy 12 days ago. A few days ago, I began bleeding from the throat. When this got to the point where I couldn't manage it at home I had to go to the emergency room. I was fine for a while sitting in the ER, or course, but then then it all came to a halt when my throat began bleeding so profusely that it choked me. It was just gushing out of my mouth at an alarming rate. Naturally, this scared the crap out of me. Not only was I really scared at being gagged by my increasingly larger clotting blood, but I was in a lot of pain having to cough after just having surgery in the area. Dr. Picerno was called to come in and assist. I was told I would need emergency surgery to remedy the unstoppable bleeding. When Dr. Picerno arrived, she greeted me with a 'You Johnson?' Personal, huh? I nodded as speaking was impossible due to my situation. I was shaking and all around me was a mess of my own blood. She said 'What are you shaking for!?' in a rude tone as if it annoyed her to her very fiber to watch. I was just confused as to what she was so pissed about. I just told her I was cold. She informed me I was going into surgery and I asked if it was the only way because surgery scared me (the initial surgery was hard enough to psych up for...anesthesia makes me nervous) and she responded in a joking and condescending manner while smurking as if it was an inside joke to a nurse 'Psh! But you just HAD surgery! You don't have a choice, look at you!' So I complied. Her rudeness didn't stop there. She continued to make snide, and annoyed remarks right up until I was knocked out. It was the post surgery visit that proved that this woman hated me or people in general, I can' tell. I get the feeling that she has very little tolerance for fearful patients and tends to think that they should all be shot, but that is just me. I remained in the hospital all that day. She came in to do her job (because I know she wasn't there to check on me out of anything other than earning her paycheck) and checked on me. She asked if I was ready to go and I told her that I wanted to stay the 23 hours that was promised to me for recovery and she lost it. She laid into me like I had stolen her first child. She said 'NO! Why would you need to do that!? I'm not letting you stay because there is a risk you'll bleed again! You're going home. You're better off there!' I was shocked. She continued with 'You had the best care possible, I was in there a half hour!' She said it as though she was pissed she wasen't getting the praise her ego-driven mind needed. Then, my husband just pointed out that I was upset at my presurgery treatment...at how much it was downplayed and she said 'What do you want me to do?!' as she threw up her arms and then released them to her sides with a slap. Like a child. I realized there would be no way to convince her to stay, so I thought I would ask some questions about my recovery so I asked if I would experience the same risks 10 days from now...the risks of bleeding and if I needed to watch out for that. She responed with 'What?! You want to stay here 10 days! Not gonna happen. That's ridiculous!' By this point, the woman just wasn't listening and was clearly out to knock me down, for whatever reason. Her browbeating didn't stop there. After retreating and hoping that my lack of questions would get this horrible woman out of my room, she kept asking if I needed any pain meds, sleeping meds and such and I said no. To get one last stinger in on my though, she said in a mocking tone 'Uh, you need some anxiety medicine. HA! Right!?' And then looked to my husband for some 'am I right' assurance from him and he just looked at her. So, this is just bits of the story of her horrible care. Beware of this bedside manner challenged 'doctor'