Ricardo A. Silva, MD, Jacksonville FL

If you're looking for a doctor who is thorough, competent, determined to get to the core source of your symptomatic concerns by asking as many questions possible, a professional who consistently remains up to date on the latest medical news/information to provide the most accurate diagnosis necessary for each of his patients' health matters. I would NEVER recommend this man to anyone. NEVER.and I HIGHLY encourage you to find a different doctor.

My mother, who had been a patient of Dr. Silva for more than 12 years, walked into his office last summer having lost close to 30 pounds of weight unintentionally, and with A1c percentages in the teens. Not only did he NOT question her drastic weight loss (from the last time he saw her which was 6 months prior), he thought her lab results weren't urgent enough to have her admitted to the hospital, nor did he think her symptoms were odd enough to at least order a scan of her pancreas to rule out the possibility of anything more severe. He "diagnosed" her with diabetes, told her to take insulin, and sent her on her way. Three months later, my mother rushed herself to the ER due to severe back and abdominal pain. Scans revealed a tumor on her pancreas that had spread to her liver and lungs. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Because the tumor had been caught so late, my mother developed a complete bowel obstruction (caused by the progression of the cancer) which prevented her from being able to pass nutrition through her digestive system, which caused her to be too high of a risk for surgery to correct the bowel obstruction. To make matters even more disappointing, due to her non functioning digestive tract, she had to forfeit her chances of getting any palliative chemo treatment.

While most medical literature and doctors state the reason pancreatic cancer is the deadliest is due to it being caught so late into Stage 4, the fact is, my mother had two critical, red flag symptoms that day she walked into Dr. Silva's office. Dramatic weight loss, coupled with an immediate onset of diabetes (unusual and dangerously high A1c numbers) which should have alarmed Dr. Silva enough to either have had my mother admitted to the hospital or at the very least, have her pancreas scanned to ensure there was no tumor. It's my belief and opinion that as a diabetic specialist (diabetes is directly related to the pancreas), Dr. Silva should have known this, or at least been a bit more concerned as to why my mother had lost so much weight in such a short period of time and why her A1c levels were suddenly so extremely high. He could have been the one to have caught my mother's tumor early enough for a more positive prognosis. With cancer, timing is everything.

My mother is currently in hospice, facing end of life stages, very frail, and still trying to figure out how the doctor she trusted for so many years, missed these warning signs completely.

I'm sharing this publicly because I want to help make others aware of possible early detection for pancreatic cancer, and to encourage the importance of holding your physicians accountable for being more curious and asking more questions that probe a bit deeper toward getting to the root cause of what's actually ailing you. Especially if you've been going to them for a long period of time. If you're loyal to them in that way, then they should remain loyal to you by doing all they can to proactively help you.

While this information can no longer save my mother, hopefully it can help save someone else's life.