Dr. William Cushard Jr, MD

I have had Addison's Disease for almost 40 years now. This is a really late review as Dr. Cushard treated me approximately 30 years ago. When I went to him I was spiraling out of control. I had been to approximately 20 doctors within the year and at least a dozen ER visits. The doctors had me convinced that I needed 2x the daily amount of steroids. This caused me to suffer steroid psychosis. I would have kept increasing my dose until I died. My mother to me to Dr. Cushard and to be honest I didn't like him because at the time I thought he didn't listen to me and told me I needed to reduce the amount of Cortisone I was taking. A few days later I had to go into a mental institution because my mind was messed up from being on too much Cortisone. Dr. Cushard after only seeing me once agreed to work with the hospital to help me. He instructed them to reduce my dose significantly and at the time I hated him for it. Thirty years later I am doing fine and owe my life to Dr. Cushard. Thank You!

As to blood work that needs to be done. It would help, if, on the blood work order sheet, it specified if the patient needs to fast or not. Also, if there is a test (such as Cortisol) that needs to be done before 9AM, it would help if that was also specified on the blood work order.

I have gone to Dr. Cushard for close to 15 years. I drive all the way from Red Bluff to see him annually. He's a very smart man and reads my labs and explains the results to me. He recommended the surgeon to me when I had my thyroid out and he did an excellent job. I find him mild mannered and easy to talk too. My medications and doses are spot on as my labs reflect. I will keep driving the distance as long as he works. I really like him alot??????

Worse Dr I have ever been to in my entire life. He doesn't trust any advances in the treatment of Hashimoto's and even went so far as to tell me that if it isn't in any of the original research of Dr Hashimoto's it doesn't exist - i.e Hashimoto's encephalopathy. He began to yell at me about the conversion of t4 to t3. He started out the appointment talking to me like I was three and even had the gall to tell me he was going to talk to me like a child so I can understand.

I was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Dr. Cushard would have misdiagnosed me if I hadn't been proactive and requested a biopsy. Once he realized it was cancer, he was defensive, lacked empathy, and told me I would need my thyroid removed. After meeting with my Surgeon, I was given the option to only remove the areas affected. The staff had me wait in a patient room for 45 min without ever checking in. Horrible service and bedside manner.

I've had one appointment so far. Dr. Cushard asked a lot of questions to set up a detailed timeline of my symptoms and conditions. He seemed genuinely interested in finding an answer to my symptoms. He's also reaching out to various other sources to collect all my relevant medical information. I'm very happy with him as my doctor so far.

Dr. Cushard uses outdated equipment and cannot even figure out how to open files on a CD, nor does he read patients health records before the patient arrives so he has no idea what is going on with the patient and if the patient is overweight due to medical conditions, Dr. Cushard says that being overweight is not an issue as most people are predisposed to having the fat gene and thus will always be fat. Then laughs about it. Plus he takes your cash and wants insurance info...can you say FRAUD!!