Dr. Celeste Johnson Brabec, MD

If you aren't ready to jump into IVF, this is not the clinic for you. Everything was incredibly rushed. The nurse didn't even accurately measure my height or weight because she was in such a hurry. I am in a same sex marriage and felt that they treated us completely differently than they would a hetero couple. None of our "at home" attempts counted for anything to them. I was there to just ensure that everything looked okay since it had been about a year since we had last tried. They wouldn't even listen to me when I mentioned trying with our sperm donor and became extremely judgmental. They treated us as if we knew nothing and as if we just chose a random man off of the street to be our donor. They literally would not listen to me AT ALL. They just wanted to push and push IVF on us and wouldn't discuss anything else. They even flat out said they would have nothing to do with us trying on our own. I've never felt so judged and ignored by a doctor's office in my life. It wasn't until… my wife mentioned that maybe we could try IVF that they seemed interested in talking to us at all. Once she said that they were suddenly ready to do blood work and an HSG. Definitely dissatisfied with this place and can't believe I actually have to send them money for that visit. I can't wait to send them a picture of the baby we make on our own at home though since they wanted to tell us it was basically impossible despite having NOTHING wrong with me whatsoever. I've since visited a different doctor for a second opinion who told us there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to conceive on our own at home.

Dr. Brabec did not educate me or provide any information about me having stage 4 endometriosis. Another doctor, 1.5 years and two failed IUIs later, reviewed the surgical report with me and informed me that I had endometriosis AND provided me education on how it impacts fertility. Though Dr. Brabec did not perform the surgery in which the endo was found (it was a fibroid surgery that she recommended while under her care), she should have followed up post-surgery as it was critical to my fertility.

Talks too fast and in circles. If you are slightly over 30 and have slightly elevated hormone levels, the talk will be all negative, scary and leave you thinking donor eggs is the only way! They stack their numbers for success, meaning she will cancel mid cycle after all meds and money wasted because she thinks it has the chance to fail, and or not even treat you unless you use donor eggs for fear of failure messing with thier statistics. Misdiagnosed and made to feel frightened about my chances. She will rush you into every aspect of decision making, and she will rush through procedures causing lots of pain. Her behavior is far beyond bedside manner. Unethical, no compassion, rude are all things we don't need while going through such a delicate process! Please go somewhere else. This place is smoke and mirrors!

I had a terrific experience with Dr. Brabec. She spent time with my husband and me and gave us various options. Their staff was very helpful and made us feel comfortable. We had tried another clinic in KC with no success. We did IVF with pgs as I am approaching 40. We're now pregnant and couldn't be happier with their office.

The two nurse practioners and office staff we worked with were all very friendly and courteous. That cannot be said for Dr Brabec. As someone else mentioned, listening to her is comparable to the line that a used car salesman might try to lure you in for a "great deal". As a health professional myself, I had to work hard to try to keep up with the speed she hit us with information and her opinions. She behaves as if she doesn't have any time to spend with the patients as evidenced by our first consultation and then never seeing her during the initial ivf process until she finally gave us the option to cancel our ivf cycle when my E2 was over 8000. I would have appreciated having the cycle cancelled earlier so I could have at least saved the medications for the next attempt. Warning flags should have gone up when a few days following our initial consultation I went to my local pharmacy and she had sent scripts in for birth control pills, antibiotics, and steroids. I can… also say that her technique is as rushed and rough as her bedside manner. She did my hsg and I experienced severe pain. Every procedure she did hurt. I've been to other RE's and never had pain like that. If you go to her, prepare to be hustled. I believe it is her goal to bilk patients out of as much money as possible. At our initial consultation, they scooted us to the lab and had several different labs drawn including the $1000+ lab for pgs testing even though we were not completely sold on it. After a consultation with another RE, we discovered that Brabec wasn't even accurate in her description of the benefits of pgs testing and wasn't completely honest about the risks to the embryos with pgs testing. I forgot to mention that she added a $2000 + medication to our ivf protocol without letting us know. Our check for our ivf cycle was cashed the day after we paid. It took several weeks, phone calls, and emails to finally get our refund on our cancelled ivf cycle. I cannot imagine this clinic being successful for any amount of time without Brabec adding a personable and capable partner. Don't waste your time and energy here unless you want a good laugh.

My wife and I recently visited this office with general questions and problems we have been having. Dr and nurse both gave no other options than IVF before even looking at other factors that could be tried before spending 20000.00 on IVF. When asked about other options it was shot down before even considering. MD spoke very quickly and could never figure out what she was talking about. I felt like I was more getting pitched a line from a sales person than being a patient trying to figure out options to try to get pregnant. I understand IVF is always a last resort option that has its benefits, but it would have been nice to have a few other options on the table that we could attempt to try.

The office staff and nurses are very caring and thoughtful. We have been going to Dr. Brabec off and on for a year and we have only had maybe 30 minutes face time with her. The rest of our time is spent with her nurse (who is incredible). We always feel rushed with Dr. Brabec, like we are putting her out by asking questions. This is of course an important decision we are making and we would like to be well informed. The seminar the staff puts on (not sure how often) is extremely informative. I trust that Dr. Brabec knows her medical field, just wish the bedside manner was better.

Please avoid this doctor at any cost. She is so uncompassionate and bad. She advised us to undergo egg donor IVF cycle for no reason (may be that she would make big bucks). But later my wife conceived naturally. She will wrong diagnose and her medical knowledge is very poor.She did one IVF cycle for us, which obviously did not work because of her bad technique. She did an awful egg retrieval procedure and my wife was in severe pain for a week and we went to see her because of this pain and my wife said she has severe pain. This Brabec shouted at my wife and asked her-how severe the pain is? If it is so severe you can not sit like this and you will be lying on the ground. So, she is very uncompassionate. At least she should be humane if she is working with IVF patients because the patients will already be under so much of grief. She also does not follow up with her patients. She is one of the worst doctors to go to. Please avoid her!

Dr.Brabec does not sugar-coat. She will be honest with you if you ask. They are very thorough at RRC but as far as treatment goes they are not exactly on the cutting edge. I was diagnosed with dimished ovarian reserve. If you get this diagnosis go somewhere else like St.Louis or Colorado-somewhere where they specialize in treating women with this problem. Brabec tried one protocol that was supposed to be more aggresive and when I didnt respond they tried to put me on the same protocol the next cycle. I had to do my own research and suggest a different protocol which actually worked for me. However it ended up no being successful. If I had to do it over again I would go out of state.

So far we have been impressed. She is very aggressive in her treatment, which is what we wanted. Long wait times at the clinic. We start our first IUI soon and are hopeful. She is very knowledgable, though explained things very quickly. I had to go back and reexplain to my husband.