Kent Johnson

As the owner of Florida Motor Sports dealership, Tallahassee resident Kent Johnson is always on the go, but one Friday in March, he was forced to slow down when he began experiencing pain in his lower right side.

After going into the dealership that morning, he returned home hoping that the pain would subside so he could go back to work. Before long, he decided that he should get checked out by his doctor before the weekend hit. His primary care physician, Randy Reese, MD, suspected acute appendicitis and said, “You need to go straight to the hospital. What hospital do you want to go to?”

Kent chose Capital Hospital and Dr. Reese called over to let the Emergency Department team know he was on his way. He arrived at about 11 a.m. “When I walked in the front door of the ER, they had my paperwork ready and they showed me right to the back with practically no waiting time at all,” he says. “I was only in the room for about 10 or 15 minutes when the doctor came back and did his preliminary checks. I was just so impressed with how efficient and courteous everyone was. The icing on the cake was that the doctor knew I was in pain and offered to give me something to make me more comfortable while they ran some tests. This was important to me because I had an experience at another hospital where I went in with a kidney stone and I was in miserable pain for hours while tests were being done.”

Once his diagnosis was confirmed, Kent’s care was turned over to the operating room staff and he went into surgery at about 4 p.m. Kathy Langston, MD, a general surgeon with Capital Surgical Associates, performed a laparoscopic appendectomy. “The operating room staff was also awesome. Everyone was so friendly and Dr. Langston was fantastic. I just can’t get over how smoothly everything went. By 8:00 that evening I was back home in my own bed. I’m telling everyone this story because when you have to go to the ER, it can seem like such a nightmare, but I couldn’t have had a better experience.”