Dr. George C Panos

Today, I had my second interaction with Dr. George Panos at Andie Family Dentistry in Milwaukee, WI. While on the first visit, I was exposed to brusque, sharp approach to patient care and communication, I attributed it to the heart health issues he experienced shortly after my visit. I continued to be a patient at Andie Family Dentistry and had several other providers. However today, when I went in for my initial appointment for a bridge and crown, I was eventually excused in the middle of the appointment by Dr. Panos and he refused to continue treatment. He cited the following issues: 1) I asked too many questions about the process - he claimed it was if I wanted to run the procedure myself. In fact, this was the first time I was ever having such an arduous procedure and wanted to know what to expect. 2) While the assistants were working on getting my impressions done, he was interrupting their process trying to get their phone numbers to text about other patient care. I asserted… myself as the patient and requested that they handle that conversation outside of the room and at a time not during my care. He stopped, but that was clearly my second strike. 3) While he was filing down my teeth for the crown, he explained how to breathe through my nose during this process and installed a bite stopper. I mentioned I was a bit congested, but wanted to see how things went. He said they would be rinsing and suctioning as they went so I wouldn't swallow the particles. During this time, he was filling and there was no suctioning but there was no water in the rinse. There was an equipment situation where the assistants were trying to resolve but this led to a lot of confusion and in fact, no water being used to rinse. I asked them to pause and to get everything together, including a working rinse, before they proceeded. At that time, he excused me from the appointment and said he would no longer be performing this procedure on me. I was shocked and asked what he meant. He explained that I hit my 3 strikes and was agitated and he would not work on me. He continued to talk down to me, condescended and would not let me get a word in edgewise. When I asked for an opportunity to speak, he just said to leave, that I was excused. I have never been treated so poorly. I went to the front desk and was visibly upset (and still numb) - I asked to speak to management. As the receptionist went to get someone, Dr. Panos came to the front to again engage with me. I said I would not speak to him as I knew he was not in charge. He instructed an assistant to keep an eye on me and call 911 if I did not leave in 5 minutes. He proceeded to call me a brute and a bully as I was standing there shaking from frustration of what just happened. I did get a chance to speak to the office manager, but Dr. Panos refused to leave the room. I said I was recording the conversation and he did not approve of the recording. I was not going to stop recording and he left the room so I could speak one-on-one with the office manager. We have resolved the situation of my care and how to proceed. However, this is my second encounter with Dr. Panos treating me, a middle-aged woman, in an unacceptable manner. I am reporting this to the WDA because I believe this is a risk and Dr. Panos should be at least notified formally of a complaint due to his challenging communication skills. I am still very rattled from this experience and hope no one has to experience something like this from Dr. Panos again.

Dr. Panos and his wife Mary treated me like a next door friend. He called the next day and cared how I was as he told me he was going to. If I knew it would be as easy as they made it I wouldn’t have been scared.