Joshua E. Kuluva MD

Dr. Kuluva was on-​call at Alta Bates Summit when I was diagnosed with MS. I instantly loved his demeanor and thoroughness and his bedside manner was immaculate. He made me smile when I was in shock and I was tested for every single other disease to rule everything. Else out! 34 blood tests, a CT Scan to rule out stroke, 3 MRIS of rain lumbar and sacral spine, and finally a spinal tap.
I have loved being a patient with him and highly recommend him. THANK YOU Dr. Kuluva for all you have done to make my disease that much easier! THANK YOU Lynne Jehle too!

I am the guardian for my brother who has total dementia and aggressive behavior problems. We have been seeing Dr Kuluva for almost 3 years. He is one of the kindest and smartest doctors I have ever been to. He has taken such great care of my brother, has personally returned phone calls when crisis occur at my brothers’ SNF and always allows plenty of time for questions. I have not had any negative experiences with the front office but I do realize it’s an extremely busy office. I feel very fortunate to have found such a great doctor and have refered others to him.

I would give Dr. Kuluva himself 100 stars if I could. He is a kind, caring, conscientious, smart doctor and I’ve had nothing but great experiences during my various office visits with him. He also prides himself on running fairly on time, (yet seems to always have plenty of time for your questions and concerns during a visit) which is not very common in the medical field.
Sadly, I would give one star to the whole administrative operation surrounding Dr. Kuluva. To make an appointment requires waiting on hold at a central Sutter Health phone number (typical hold times are around 10 min from my experience). Then they rarely even have an appointment available. Meaning, they actually tell you, «Sorry there are no appointments.» Can you be placed on a cancellation waitlist? No. The only option is to call back every week until the new schedule is out for three months from the time you call (i.e. call in Mid may and you have to wait until the August schedule comes out to even have a hope at getting an appointment).
I had the good fortune of getting on his calendar at the last minute, rearranged my whole day to be able to go to the appointment, and when I showed up was told he was 45 minutes behind which just wouldn’t be possible for me given the meetings I had rescheduled for later in the day so I could go to the appointment in the first place. At least they told me… but it would have been great to know before I drove 25 minutes to his office and then had to turn right around and drive back after completely inconveniencing my co workers and family to be able to go to the appointment. They wouldn’t reschedule me (no appointments available for the next three months). But here’s the real kicker, three days later I get a notice in the mail threatening to drop me as a client of the practice because I had missed my appointment! (yeah, the one where I had to leave because I couldn’t wait an additional 45 minutes to be seen by the doctor).
To their credit, everyone I’ve dealt with is friendly, but the system is completely unworkable and makes it hard to be a patient of Dr. Kuluva’s.

For some reason, reviews of doctors seem to be based more on ‘bedside manner” rather than actual medical competence; this guy is HIGHLY competent.
Unlike most Kalifornia doctors, he went to medical school in the U.S., and he interned in the North East; this means, in very sharp contrast to most every other doctor you’ll see around here, he is Lyme Literate.
His immediate staff is great too; they follow-​up diligently. The department he is in was hard-​hit with just about every doctor jumping ship (these sort of specialists can make more money elsewhere, or in private practice…); and even after 5 years the department is still recovering. Many of their listed doctors are working outside their expertise, or are virtually retired, and work very little. (Also, Sutter Health is a task master, MANY good doctors bail on this outfit).
The front desk staff for this department is one of the worst in the entire Sutter System. I’ve taken granny to MANY of them, this one really sucks. They never show their name tags, they never post what doctors are ‘in’ and what one’s ‘arn’t’ — despite a chart for that being present. Let’s say Kulava asks for you to come back in 2 weeks; as you leave and make your appointment at the front desk, they will state: «No-​way Jose; Soonest I can get you in is a month… unless you want to see one of our other (incompetent) doctors.» If you tell them that 2-​weeks is actually necessary, then they will say: «too bad, and too sad; also we don’t maintain a list for cancellation calls; dats too difficult.» (I’m being serious here)
A previous poster’s comment regarding bad reviews for Dr. Kulava needs repeating: «These patients worded their reviews in the self-​involved manner of your typical neurotic narcissist, with the sense of entitlement and pseudo-​liberal hypocrisy that can only be found in Berkeley.»

Say it ain’t so! Neurotics visiting a Neurologist!

As a patient who has had my fair share of negative experiences with Berkeley physicians, Dr. Kuluva was a breath of fresh air.
His exam was thorough, he spent more time with me than I expected, and he even gave me career advice, as I am contemplating a career change. With Dr. Kuluva being the second physician to give me this particular suggestion, I am taking it under advisement.
I read his other reviews on here, and they certainly are mixed. The one-​star reviewers are dodgy at best, so I decided to go see him, anyways. I did note a few, which were by the patients who complained that Dr. Kuluva made them feel «dismissed» and «whiny». These patients worded their reviews in the self-​involved manner of your typical neurotic narcissist, with the sense of entitlement and pseudo-​liberal hypocrisy that can only be found in Berkeley.

I wrote a review about Dr. Kuluva a couple of years ago that didn’t get posted for some reason. At the time, Unilocal said they were going to review it, but then never posted it. Since it never got posted, here goes another try. The reason I’m posting this is that I’d like to 2^nd Kristin K’s experience with Dr. Kuluva. While my experience was not as awful as her’s, I also found him to be pretty dismissive.
At the time that I was his patient, I was a graduate student in NYC, and was referred to him via the campus counselling center. At that point in my life, I was dealing with a good deal of depression for a variety of reasons. However, he was often dismissive of the things that I would bring up with him — so much so that I found myself censoring myself during our appointments. In fact, I often left my appointments with him feeling worse than when I came in because he made me feel stupid and whiny. Not exactly a great recipe for building trust with someone. Being an adult child of an alcoholic parent who was also often dismissive of me, this really was an especially lousy way to work with me.
After several months, I finally got fed up with seeing him, and quit making appointments.
If you give him the benefit of the doubt, I believe he was a doing his residency at NYU Medical Center during the time when I was his patient; and for that reason, my understanding was that he was often dealing with patients with far greater psychological issues than run-​of-​the-​mill depression like mine. As a result, I could see how my issues at the time would pale in comparison. Still, I think it’s poor practice to make any of your patients feel worse than when they came in, regardless of how severe their issues are.
For those who have had success working with him, all the power to you and God bless. My experience with him, however, was lousy and I could never recommend him to anyone.

Dr. Kuluva struck me immediately as attentive and sincere. His attitude was empathetic, open and responsive. He actually seemed to enjoy his work a great deal. Not only was he knowledgable about my situation (much more than previous specialists), he had new information and recommendations. He also responded to a good sense of humor — something lacking in so many doctors.

Dr. Kuluva is excellent. I have many medical problems and have seen many neurologists regarding various problems including chronic pain. Dr. Kuluva is interested, and has interesting, different ideas. He is a pleasure to work with. I am now in a lot less pain, due to his ideas.

I have seen Dr. Kuluva three times and have been impressed each time. I was nervous my first time due to the other review but I had a very different experience. The staff at the front and back were very kind. While I did have to wait a bit between the time of my appointment and when I saw the doctor, once I saw him I was so impressed with how much time he spent with me (about an hour) and his bedside manner. I found him to be thoughtful, thorough and genuinely concerned about my fear as to what was wrong with me (migraines).
I left off one star because he never returns my call on the first try (following up on blood work, getting medication samples to pick up). I have to call 2 or 3 times to get a response. But he is definitely worth it!

I had seen Dr Kuluva 2x & pulled up the Unilocal page for his phone number– Was really shocked by Kristen K’s review since I had such an opposite experience. My symptoms were also confusing & had different possible causes and the Dr was wiling to explore the possibilities via tests and possible therapies.
He spent a lot of time with me clarifying the onset and symptoms and I would not hesitate to recommend him to others.

I have been working in the medical field for several years, and I have visited my fair share of doctors for various things. Across all my encounters with physicians, I have never experienced the rudeness and incompetence that I came across in Dr. Joshua Kuluva. I had been referred to another doctor in his practice, but took an appointment with him because it was available earlier and I was miserable.
So that was one of the biggest mistakes that I have ever made. I’m not sure if Dr. Kuluva is interpersonally awkward, or if he had a specific problem with me, but I have never been personally insulted by a physician the way that I was insulted by him. He put me in tears, and made me feel like absolute crap. However, he did agree to run a few tests, so I agreed to see him a second time.
Again, another huge mistake. Because the tests were inconclusive, he decided to insinuate that it was stress (i.e. all in my head), and not a physical issue. He absolutely could not say «I don’t know what’s going on», or even agree that my symptoms did exist despite the lack of clear diagnostic information. Again, he put me in tears with his insensitivity. This time, I tried to address it with him, to which he laughed at me. I was literally begging for something, anything to give me some hope. I asked for non-​medical interventions that might help me, such as massage or physical therapy, which made him laugh even more.
I worry for others who may become patients of this man. Believe me– you CAN fire a physician that you don’t believe is providing you the care that you deserve! I wish that I could describe everything wrong with this man and his practice of medicine, but it would be too long and heavy. Let it suffice that I believe this man should not be a physician, or at least he should be in an area of medicine where he doesn’t have patient contact.