Dr. Amanda Ruiz, MD

Compassionate and very professional. Highly recommended.

Dr Ruiz was wonderful to me. She helped me through a very difficult time after loosing a very dear member of my family. I would recommend Dr. with my whole heart.

Among other things this woman has an alarming and distracting habit which she seems to be unaware of. Even though she deals with people who are mentally and emotionally wounded, she appears to expect them to rally to her own level of functionality when they are in her presence. During my recent stay at Cedars Sinai while she was my attending psychiatrist I observed her smilingly address a patient who seemed to be disoriented and unable to clearly communicate. After asking a question of the patient three times without getting a suitable answer Ms. Ruiz's smile left her face abruptly. Her eyes took on the look of a poisonous snake about to strike and her words were "I don't have to take this!" She subsequently walked away. Eight days later it was my turn to experience this phenomenon. I had been diagnosed by a team of psychologists as having PTSD and MDD, and had been put through four days of uncertainty about whether I would be allowed to return to my home for personal items before… being transferred to some sort of revolving-door MediCal-skimming halfway house for drug addicts--a malady which I have never been diagnosed with or suffered from. I was confused, disoriented, upset, and shut down in self-protective isolation. Ms. Ruiz came into my room and began speaking in an upbeat cheerful manner. I don't have any idea what she was saying and was unable to respond to her in the manner she apparently expected me to. All at once her facial expression changed, she once again acquired an enraged look, and her words to me (actually, more to herself?) were: "I don't deserve this!" And again she stalked away. The following day when my own situation became desperate and I asked to speak to a psychiatrist she sent word that she would not be coming, that I would just have to find a way to deal with the emergency. Knowing that many mental health workers enter the field after being assisted by therapists during a major trauma which has taken place at a pivotal point in their lives, I suspect Ms. Ruiz still suffers from the effects of whatever distress sparked her interest in psychiatry. I believe that she has successfully hidden her emotional "scarring" from everyone who might have been in a position to do something about it. She comes across as "tough" but one can sense her undercurrent of fear. I am not a trained observer of aberrant behavior, so I am only expressing my own observations and opinion.