Dr. Marc Charles Chamberlain, MD

I waited two months to see this doctor. At the appointment, he seated the person I had brought along directly behind him and across the room so she couldn't hear. He glanced at my list of symptoms and without asking any clarifying questions, said, "There is no such illness as this." He made demeaning statements such as, "The painful neuropathies are AIDS, syphillus, alcoholism and diabetes, and you don't have diabetes." He dominated the conversation completely and did not try to understand my symptoms. When I later got a diagnosis elsewhere, it turned out that my condition was rare, but my symptoms were right out of the textbook.

I went to Dr. Chamberlain for several Ommaya taps. He was always courteous. He also a pretty funny guy. I felt at ease each time i went to him.

Dr. Chamberlain put my dad on a study that he was the main researcher on. We had asked to participate in another one but he said it was no longer offered but when I checked with the hospital it actually was. Dad liked him and was comfortable with him so we went with what he advised. Dad fell into the .1 percent who things might go wrong for. We saw Dr. Chamberlain on a Friday, Valentine's Day and dad had developed a 107 degree fever from the experimental drug. Dad was sent to the hospital and Dr. Chamberlain had a long weekend planned so we never saw him. We were there for two weeks with nobody knowing what to do because they didn't understand the trial drug. They kept saying to ask our oncologist but come to find out he went on a month vacation and didn't leave us in the care of anyone else. Dad's brain never recovered from the drug and the fever and we never saw Dr. Chamberlain again.