Dr. Robert John Fontana, MD

He is extremely unprofessional and unlikable. For some background, I am a transgender man and type 1 diabetic (the type not caused by diet or weight) and have been the latter for 15 years. Every other provider at U of M has been excellent in regards to treating me as a man and respecting my decisions about my own healthcare and body. This was not the case with Dr. Fontana. I came to see him for some irregularities in my blood work that my endocrinologist had noticed. He spent the entire visit lecturing me about "chronic testosterone use in women", referring to me as a woman, suggesting I go to the lowest dose of testosterone despite not being my endocrinologist or knowing anything about endocrinology, saying I need to get my sugars under control (they are, I repeated this 3 times, my A1C is at a 5.4 which is incredibly low), saying that I need to lose weight, and even asked if my "many" tattoos had given me HIV and when I said no asking if I had been tested as if he didn't believe me.… I told him I was not interested in weight loss because many studies show how unsustainable that is and both my primary and endocrinologist are not concerned with it, and said that I was not interested because I'd dealt with disordered eating before (restriction based). He immediately assumed I had a binge eating issue, which I never have, because I'm fat. Despite my repeated insistence that I was not interested in weight loss, he persisted. Towards the end of the visit, I asked him if I did not lose weight what the worst case scenario for this specific issue could be. He didn't answer my question at all, just stuttering over how "chronic testosterone use in women" puts us at risk for liver issues and "they probably didn't go over that with you", even though to even get on testosterone you have to be well informed and give informed consent to the risks involved. Simply put, the visit could have been 5 minutes long and he could have said, "Right now this has no long term effect or danger but as you're at increased risk of liver problems due to weight, diabetes, and testosterone, you should keep an eye on liver function with your endocrinologist," and that would've been perfectly fine. Instead he spent 20 minutes lecturing me about "women with chronic testosterone use" and being fat. If you're going to be a medical professional, leave your private political opinions at home and just treat patients for the issues they come to you with and actually listen to them when they speak. It was extremely unprofessional and I've never left a bad review about anything in my entire life, but the whole thing was so infuriating I wanted to warn others.

Dr. Fontana is an excellent doctor! He is very knowledgeable and works with me as a patient to provide me with the best care. I have had him as a doctor for over 20 years.

He was degrading to me as a patient. I am a nurse and would never recommend this man. He may be intelligent but no kindness or bedside manner.