Turner Geoffrey K MD

My father passed away unexpectedly recently. He was a diabetic in poor health. Dr. Turner's served as the medical examiner and marked on the death certificate that "smoking" directly contributed to my fathers death, though it did not in any way - my dad had never smoked, except maybe a puff nearly 40 years ago when he was a teenager. Because this was false, it needed to be corrected. It could've been an innocent mistake, but that wasn't the problem; Dr. Turner's practice simply refused to communicate with us to fix the mistake. I am out of state and had to return home. We did not get the death certificate proof from Dr. Turner until after the funeral and after I had to leave, but we began attempting to contact his office immediately. In a nutshell, it took almost a week of many calls, many times being told "Dr. Turner has left for the day," attempts of contact by even our funeral home director, meeting and review with the health department and even our attorney over the course of a week to get him to change this. I understand if he had basis to write this in from what information he received on bad paperwork that got transferred, etc, but the worse part is that he would not talk to us or our funeral home. He would not return calls to a grieving family that was not able to meet with him due to distance, all while our lives were on hold as you cannot due anything without a death certificate legally, all while the bills keep piling up. Our lawyer and even our funeral director (from a very prominent local funeral home) told us that they could not understand why he was doing this and how they have never seen a medical examiner make life so difficult for a family who needs to communicate with him. The funeral director even attempted at calling, but they would not speak with him as "he was not family". I understand this... but why won't you speak with the family??? It was a simple fix; we even contacted our dad's primary care physician, who said she would give a statement that she was never aware of my dad as a smoker and that she had no idea why he recorded that. Also, after days of being told each time that Dr. Turner had "left for the day" (even after calling many times and asking for them to leave notes), we were finally told by his office that, "Well, it is policy that if someone admits to smoking in the past, even a puff from a cigarette, then we record that smoking contributed to their death." The county health department and attorney both voiced that this was absolutely false and had no idea why we were told this. I found information from the CDC that even stated that this was false; you mark "smoking" as a contribution to death in instances such as heart disease, emphysema, lung cancer, etc. Only after the health department agreed to review our case and we continued pressing did he apparently agree to change it from "smoking" to "unknown" as a contributing cause of death (I say this because he still never contacted us or spoke to us). It was an absolute nightmare, one that I am helpless to fix almost 800 miles away. We were also told that he should never have his office staff speak on his behalf. He signed off, and should explain himself regardless. I am a teacher; if a parent ever wants to meet with me, I don't send them through my office staff or principal; I speak with them directly AND promptly. Despite this, my job doesn't keep peoples lives on hold for an entire week while they are desperately trying to get an explanation. You should take that responsibility seriously as a physician. Even to this day, Dr. Turner has never made an attempt to contact us or give an explanation. We have never met him and would really like to hear his side. Until then, we will regard him and his practice as very unprofessional and not concerned with the needs of the families he is supposed to help. We have been told to pursue a complaint through the state Medical board.
10 years ago (17-04-2016)

Just called the office 5 minutes before close to make an appointment 3/9/17 at 4:55 pm. Was put on hold by an employee, and 5 minutes later at closing time I was hung up on. No explanation or apology, just click. Dr. Turner has always been great to my family, but whoever was working on the above day and time, should be replaced or retrained.
9 years ago (09-03-2017)

Friendly. Takes time to answer questions. Gives it v to you straight.
9 years ago (06-04-2017)

Would not fill my meds iv been getting for years.horrible doctor.would recommend going there 0%
11 years ago (20-11-2015)