Victoria Shimotsu, MD

This review is long overdue but alas I found the time to write it. A while ago while bike riding I got bit by something. I didn’t have a primary care doc so some google searching somehow led me to her. It wasn’t a normal bug bite, the redness kept growing and making my thigh muscle feel weaker and quite warm. During my dr appt I showed her my bite. She took a ball point pen and traced where the redness went to. Told me, if it grows bigger than that, come back.
Ok. So I thought no big deal. 2 days later it was worse. I came back thinking she had a solution for me. She traced the larger bit of redness that grew since the last… tracing, and prescribed me some antibiotics and told me if it gets bigger or worse to come back…
I thought the antibiotics would do it but it actually didn’t. The bite /​redness grew and i started to feel some pain walking. She told me to come in again and I thought she would re-​diagnose, but guess what she did… she drew ANOTHER freaking line around the spread out redness and told me if it gets worse to probably go to the ER. She prescribed me stronger antibiotics and I left angry. I took the antibiotics for another day and waited to see if it would get any better, luckily the antibiotics helped dissipate the redness and it started slowly getting better.
Then the freaking bill came… $ 200 for this «doc» to draw stupid lines with a ballpoint pen on my leg… (with insurance). Thanks…
She’s a pleasant person, but I can’t really tell if she knows what she’s doing.

Bottom line… Dr. Shimotsu is one of my favorite medical professionals, and I REALLY like my optometrist ;-)
Why? Simple, she knows her stuff AND can break it down in a really simple way AND she can make you laugh while doing it. It’s the ideal intersection between being incredibly competent and actually human.
If you’re moving to the Sunnyvale area, or looking for somebody solid, definitely choose Dr. S. Also, PAMF takes the LinkedIn and Google insurance.

I have been seeing Dr. Shimotsu for almost 2 yrs now. All I can say is that, she is very caring and takes her time to listen to my concern, she loves to educate her patient regarding what it is the concern for that visit and when she’s not sure, she normally ask a second opinion with the other doctors just to make sure she did not missed anything before letting patient go. She goes above and beyond to make sure her patients are well taking care off.

Dr Shimotsu was my Wife’s primary doctor and her experience could have not been worse.
My wife went there with back pain and foot pain and she gave her Physiotherapy.
After one month of continued foot pain and she telling my wife that nothing is wrong, my wife went and saw another Doctor. The other Doctor looked at the XRays that Dr Shimotsu took and in 20 seconds said your foot is fractured how come the other Doctor missed it!
About the back pain after 6 months of pain, many Physiotherapy sessions and an ER visit we got a second opinion. The Doctor said your symptoms are more inline with kidney stone and took a CT scan and found gallstone.
She costs us lots of money, time and lots of unnecessary pain for my wife.

I do not know where to begin…
FIRST, I made an appointment with her after months of back pain. Pain was not constant, it would come and go for days at the time. So I decided to go to her for help. She did not know what I had, she said it is probably just muscle pain, and told me to take ibuprofen. As pain starting getting worse I went back and asked if she could please do X-​rays and she agreed. X-​rays showed scoliosis and she referred me to a Physical Therapist.
After a couple of months of physical therapy pain is still present. Just this past week my pain was so terrible that I had to go to Urgent Care. The doctor that helped me there thought that I might have kidney stones so she ordered a CT scan and instead found Gallblader stones and I am scheduled for surgery in a week. I’ve had every single symptom for months and I kept ignoring it because I thought it was just my scoliosis and muscle pain.
I kept mentioning the nausea to her, the location of the pain in my back and how much it went to the front of my ribcage and she completely ignored me. She could have avoided me all these months of pain and sleepless nights. If only she gave patients a bit more attention.
SECOND. A few days after I began Physical Therapy my foot began to hurt a lot. I went back to Dr. Shimotsu and she took a look at my swollen foot. She sent me back to PT, saying it was probably just a tendon. I did everything I could to help with the pain but It would not get any better. I went back to her and asked for X-​rays and she agreed, the looks at the X-​rays and says that there is no fracture… even though my foot was swollen and hot to touch. I keep going to PT until the therapist suggest that I visit a Podiatrist.
I emailed Dr. Shimotsu about the condition of my foot and she did not bother to reply to my email. I go to a Podiatrist in the Mountain View location and after looking at my X-​rays (same X-​rays that she looked at before) finds a metatarsal stress fracture. I left his office wearing an ortophedic boot, wore it for 6 weeks.
I’m not sure if she doesn’t listen, if she doesn’t know what she is doing or If she just doesn’t care. Maybe all three of them.
There are wonderful doctors at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Do your research before choosing yours, that is what I should have done in the beginning.

I went in to see if I had a ear infection. Dr Shimotsu examined my ear for 2 mins and declared nothing wrong. Next week I get a bill for $ 220 obviously not covered by insurance. Not going back. Ever.