Dr. Vaughan Washco, DO

As a fellow physician, I was shocked at how poor Dr. Washco’s bedside manner skills were. After arguably one of the worst days of our families life, he showed no compassion towards addressing our concerns. Forget being a physician, at a human level there should be some level of empathy towards families and basic situational understanding. After our initial conversation where I voiced my concerns with the direction of treatment, he avoided all further discussions with our family while he was the attending on service. His team would round outside the room in the morning and he would intentionally avoid coming into the room to discuss treatment or plans. Fortunately, the physician that came on the following week worked with my family and was active in goals of care discussions. Dr. Washco’s approach toward handing discussions with family is easily the worst I have ever seen in my time in the medical field.

He was very... how do I put this.. selfish? He seems to fundamentally lack empathy, and was incredibly dismissive of my concerns and patronizing about basic questions. If kindness and basic human decency is important to you in a doctor, I would avoid him.

Extremely poor bedside manner and unprofessional demeanor. Lets his personal biases affect his decisions on how to treat a patient. Does not know how to speak to patients or families of a critically ill patient. I hope if you have a family member in the Inova ICU, you do not get this doctor. If your family member is very ill, he will automatically assume they do not deserve to live. Gives families ultimatums rather than showing empathy and explaining the medical rationale.