Dr. Arnold Glen Fontanilla, DO

This doctor, whom I called last night because my husband was coughing so hard that he a) could not sleep, and b) his blood pressure was spiking, needs to brush up on the oath he took to help patients. His conduct and lack of compassion was nothing short of pathetic. My husband had been hospitalized and released 2 days ago, and they ruled out pneumonia or anything else serious going on in the lungs, which I passed along to this Dr. Fontanilla. Since coughing is extremely harmful for a heart patient, especially with an aneurysm and familial high blood pressure already, I was extremely concerned. It all fell on completely deaf ears with this man. We have never bothered our doctors for any medication in all the 5 years we were with them -- first time -- so I asked him if he could call the pharmacy and order cough medicine with codeine so my husband could get a good night's sleep (we had tried all the traditional cough medicines at this point), his response was "NO!" His ridiculous comment… followed -- "It's a controlled substance and I'm not allowed to call that in." So I called the pharmacist and she said he was lying, because it absolutely can be called in and all doctors know that. We don't take any medications, ever, and he could have easily checked that on a database made for that specific purpose, or at the very least, called the pharmacist to see if either of us took narcotics, which we don't (if that was really his concern). Considering I worked for years to eliminate most pharmaceuticals from our lives through plant based eating, no salt and no medication, this was an oxymoron to treat us like we were fishing for some kind of drugs (the cough medicine is specifically made for patients in my husband's boat and could have significantly helped him). This doctor clearly violated ethics rules and hurt a patient -- and I am reserving the right to file a complaint with the NJ State Boards to report his complete lack of professionalism and compassion (and ability to practice medicine appropriately). Talk about the pendulum completely swinging the other way, just because some people have problems with drugs, he's making everyone else suffer? I basically cut him off and said, "this is disgusting, have a good night, doctor." I wish he could have heard my husband suffer last night...but then, it's pretty obvious he wouldn't have cared less! I'm sure HE slept well last night, though.