If you want a doctor who truly respects you as a person, I can not recommend Sharon Patrick. Because I had a hard time getting pregnant and had to go through fertility treatments, I assumed my pregnancy would be "high risk", which is why I went with Dr. Patrick. In fact, I had a totally healthy and normal pregnancy, and in retrospect should have chosen a different kind of doctor. But I was just so happy to be pregnant that it was good enough for me to hear a heartbeat at every pre-natal visit. As others have said, Dr. Patrick was pleasant enough at our visits, but didn't spend very much time explaining things or asking questions. She would answer my questions very briefly. Around 32 weeks, I brought in a birth plan, which she looked over and said would be no problem. The gist of it was that my husband and I wanted to be well-informed of what was happening during delivery, and wanted no interventions unless absolutely medically necessary. I wish Dr. Patrick had been more honest… about her style, which seems to be somewhat interventionist, so I could have been better prepared for my delivery or even tried to find a different Dr.I went into labor at full term (almost 40 weeks) and had a long labor (60 hours, 48 of which were at home.) I was doing great laboring "naturally" at home, but as soon as I got to the hospital, the interventions began. I was hooked up to the fetal heart monitor and told not to move -- difficult when having strong back labor! Soon after that I was told they were going to break my water, and then that I would need Pitocin to move my labor along, etc. etc. All of these decisions were probably medically responsible, but Dr. Patrick spoke over my head, basically ignoring me and my husband in the process. She did not inform us clearly of why things were necessary, and largely ignored our birth plan. It was scary and upsetting to suddenly feel shut out of the process of my own delivery, and very disheartening after what had been a challenging but empowering laboring process up to that point.The pushing was the absolute worst. I believe she told me to start pushing too early to "just get the baby out" as I was only 9.5 cm. dilated and ended up pushing for almost 3 hours. She was not a good coach at all, kept leaving the room for long stretches of time, and when she was there kept barking at me that I wasn't doing it right. She kept saying over and over "Pull your knees to your ears! Open your pelvis!" Her instructions weren't getting through to me and I felt totally defeated after almost 60 hrs. of laboring. As my doula (who has attended many births) later said, Dr. Patrick's strange lack of confidence in me was very palpable. She didn't seem to believe I could push the baby out, and so neither did I. At one point she said something along the lines of, "I know you don't want a C-section, but that's what's going to happen if you don't push better." (this is with the baby's head descended and bulging). In the end, we used a vacuum extractor to help deliver my son.I had a lot of tearing, and Dr. Patrick was efficient and skilled in her repairing. I do believe she is a competent surgeon, but her communication skills are really lacking and she was not sensitive to my or my husband's feelings.To sum up her attitude toward patient needs: when she came to circumcise my son two days later, I asked her about how long it would take. She gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Between 2 minutes and an hour! What difference does it make?!" I was so stunned I could barely say anything, and then burst into tears as she wheeled my newborn baby out of the room. It took me a while to get over that... I felt so humiliated and disrespected, and I felt like a terrible mother for letting someone so insensitive whisk my baby away like that -- not how you want to feel two days postpartum!In the end, I was so dreading going back to her for my 6-week follow-up that I actually switched to a new practice (and am now dealing with the insurance nightmare that ensued). I guess it's pretty telling that I couldn't bear the thought of exposing myself to her again (I also knew she would not be as thorough as I needed with my questions and concerns). I ended up seeing a wonderful, caring, gentle mid-wife, which just made me realize even more how different my birth experience might have been with a kinder, more respectful doctor.One other thing to note: the office manager/receptionist at Dr. Patrick's practice is AWFUL... extremely hostile and rude, even combative with patients. I swear I got high blood pressure on the visits when I had to deal with her... again, not what you want to (or should have to) deal with when pregnant.In the end, I do believe Dr. Patrick is probably a competent surgeon, and I even believe that the medical decisions she made during my delivery were probably largely grounded in necessity, or at least caution, but she was not able to communicate any of this to me in a respectful way. Yes, I ended up with a beautiful, healthy baby, and for this I am eternally grateful, but I did not need to feel degraded and dismissed in the process. If you are someone who wants to be involved in your own pregnancy and birth experience, I would highly recommend finding a more sensitive doctor.
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