Susan Leong-Kee, MD

Dr. Susan Leong-​Kee is awesome! From annual wellness exams to a major surgical procedure; she has always treated me with compassion. I trust SLK! I’ve been under her care and advisory for the past 9 years. She has provided sound medical advice. I highly recommend Dr. Leong-​Kee!

I was googling Dr. Leong-Kee’s name to set up a follow-​up appointment with her a while back and was surprised to see a negative review. I don’t usually do reviews on doctors on Unilocal so it took me a while to decide to whether or not to write, but I wanted readers to see another review so they can have a fuller picture of Dr. Leong-​kee as an OB.
Dr. Leong-​kee was not scheduled to work the night I gave birth but came up to check on me as I had missed a follow-​up appointment that day. My husband and I have no doubt, that if Dr. Leong-​kee had not stayed with me and taken control of the process until the end (late at night), I would have ended up with a c-​section or the situation could have ended much worse. Her constant support and advice in what became a pretty tense situation at the end was what got us through in a safe manner. Also even working late into the evening for our birth, she came and visited me and my daughter at the NICU early the next morning to check up on us. My daughter was in the NICU overnight to monitor her head swelling from being stuck in my canal.
To follow-​up on the previous review, my daughter was also whisked away to the NICU. This was the decision on the on-​call NICU pediatrician, not Dr. Leong-​Kee. I would have also liked to spend more time with her after the birth but at the same time I also wanted to make sure she was in the best medical care as possible given what we had both been through.
I learned first-​hand that the birth process is dynamic and often not what you expect it to be, so I just wanted to share with the readers how happy we were that Dr. Leong-​Kee was part of mine.

Dr. Leong-​Kee served as the attending OB for the deliveries of my twin daughters in August 2012, both of whom have congenital heart defects, 1 minor, the other (ToF) very serious.
The Baylor Clinic was overly busy. Its OBs did not cap the number of pregnant patients based on EDD. 4 of us patients arrived at the Pavilion in labor at the same time. Babies at this practice are delivered by a single on-​call OB. My labor was fast. I was assessed at 9 cm, & reported to the resident that the twin w ToF was on the right. She determined that this twin was up first & was head-​down, & reported this to L-​K. I stated that I wished to VBAC.
I was 9.5 cm dilated & had just been separated from my husband & son when I met Dr. L-​K. She introduced herself, reminding me that we’d spoken on the phone, «where» she stated «you failed to tell me that you’d had a previous c-​section». She hadn’t asked. I was asked to climb onto a gurney. While I attempted to find the midpoint between my contractions, in order to move, Dr. L-​K questioned me. Unfortunately, my usual OB, Dr. Ivey had never given me written permission to VBAC, as promised. L-​K asked several «Why didn’t Dr. Ivey???» questions & several complicated medical questions, which I was unable to satisfactorily answer. If she didn’t like an answer I gave, she asked the question repeatedly until she got an answer she did like. As in any interrogation, she got the true answers the 1^st time she asked. The rest was a waste of valuable time, while L-​K became carried away with her own cleverness & over-​interpreted my answers. If she wanted to know why my OB did one thing or another, or what he thought, she should have called him.
I could feel the urge to push coming on. I was physically in pain & humiliated – I couldn’t answer her questions & find the midpoint between the contractions simultaneously, & so couldn’t get on the gurney, & was devastated by the absence of my family & support from my OB, & by the certainty that I would not be allowed to give birth. Most importantly, I was going out of my mind with worry for the 1^st baby, who needed to be delivered w Neonatology there.
In fishing around for answers that would please her, I gave some information that made it seem more likely that the healthy twin should have been 1^st in the birth order. L-​K responded by asking me multiple times, «So the twin w ToF is the one that’s transverse?». Obviously, I hadn’t performed the scan. She never asked her resident, who was in the room. L-​K concluded that as she could not determine why Ivey hadn’t wanted me to VBAC, it would be safer for me to have a c-​section. More importantly, she incorrectly reported to Neonatology that the 2^nd twin was the one w ToF. This twin was given meds for ~ an hour, during which time the other twin was denied it. The twin who received the meds could have suffered serious side effects; the twin who needed the meds and didn’t get them could have died.
I cannot understand why L-​K attached any significance to what I said while in transition. Apart from anything that I reported, my daughters’ most recent fetal Echos had been conducted less than a week before, & the Cardiologist’s notes, filed in time to be available to Dr. L-​K, confirm that the twin on the right was the twin w ToF.
I never consented to the c-​section or spinal block in writing. L-​K wrote in her notes that the «decision was made with patient & her husband to proceed with an urgent repeat C/​S», though he wasn’t even in the room when she reached her decision. The deliveries were the least sympathetic I could imagine. Internal exams were effected w/​o warning. When I reported that I was feeling the urge to push, I was examined, determined to be complete, & advised «Don’t push!», w/​o any explanation of how not to push. Otherwise, once on the exam table, no one from OB spoke to me before, during, or after the procedure, other than to inform me, seemingly as an afterthought that I had 2 daughters.
My babies were removed from the OR w/​o my even seeing them at close-​range, in order to receive Echos as quickly as possible, b/​c Neonatology suspected that the wrong baby was getting the meds. As OB/​GYN were finishing up, I overheard L-​K tell her resident, «Well I guess you got that one wrong too.» Nice – & hardly confidence-​inspiring.
4 days later, my staples were removed. It took a very experienced nurse ~ 2 hours to extract these, w help. Several staples were broken off, others were embedded in the incision itself. I can’t help but worry that if the staples were botched, the internal incision may not have been sutured well either.
In all, the event of my daughters’ births was total chaos, & the single most traumatic event of my life. The Baylor Clinic had too many patients. Dr. Leong-​Kee was not a cool-​hand in a crisis, lacked basic social & leadership skills, & got carried away w her own cleverness. Moreover, she may not have adequate clinical skills. Definitely NOT a good choice for an OB/​GYN.