Pellegrini performed coronary bypass on me in 07/2012. The surgery was successful, but gave me a staph infection. A year and a half later after two more operations Pellegrini wanted to remove my sternum to remove the infection--extremely aggressive, dangerous, and as it turned out unnecessary. He told me "Do it soon, or you will end up in the ICU really sick". He seems to use scare tactics to get patients to acquiesce--see the review below. I didn't acquiesce. I went to UCSF where they removed an infected piece of my breastbone the size of a fingernail. Problem solved. Don't trust Pellegrini. He's aggressive and dangerous.

Submitted Feb. 23, 2015

Dr. Pellegrini replaced my heart valve and part of my ascending aorta. There was an aortic aneurism, although not yet serious. It was suggested, and I thought it best, to just go ahead and replace the weak section of aorta, since the bicuspid aortic valve was about used up, and they'd only have to cut open my chest once that way. I lived, obviously, I'm in reasonably good health, and not too appallingly scarred. Dr. Pellegrini was polite and thoroughly professional. I have to mark down the staff. Dr. Pellegrini doesn't directly control that, as far as I know, the Kaiser bureaucracy does, so it seems a bit unfair. The office people were good, but there were some issues with the aftercare. A couple of friends who suffered serious accidents had bad aftercare experiences with other, non-Kaiser hospitals, too, so it seems that this could be an area where there is general room for improvement in our medical system.

Submitted Aug. 25, 2013

I have an aortic aneryseum that I knew about, all I wanted was it checked for growth size and he did but immediately told me I would be dead in a week without HIM doing the life/death surgery. He screwed my life up and all for nothing. I sought 2nd, 3rd, and even a 4th opinion with world renowned vascular surgeons who said the “guy is a quack, it’s not big enough and surgery now will kill you, do not do it”. And Dr. Pellegrini said he had 75 surgeries with a mortality rate of 20%. World renowned Stanford Hospital said, at the highest mortality rate should be only 1% and if he is losing 20% of his patients, he shouldn’t be doing this delicate surgery, plus they found out he has done less than 10 valve replacement surgeries, not 75 as he initially claimed. I could have been a lamb taken to the slaughter listening to this nut. BE CAREFUL! GET 2ND, 3RD, AND 4TH OPINIONS!

Submitted July 29, 2009