Dr. Joseph Stephen Rabatin, MD

I have had two bad experiences with this doctor. The first was an underarm problem called hydradentisis supurativa. He told he to simply use hot compresses on it and it would go away. 3 days later, I had massive abcesses coming to the surface of my skin, and one night my underarm was completely red with about 3 abcesses; my with insisted I went to the emergency room. Once there, they drained the abcesses and put me on antibiotics. It took me about 3 weeks to get better from this; the real kicker was this: at the time, we did not have insirance! So, this trip to the ER cost us several thousand dollars, all of which could have been prevented if the doctor said "Come back if it gets worse". The second time, I came in complaining of extreme back pain. He entered the office, with a medical student in training, and was more concerned in showing the med student "the muscles that run along my spine" as opposed to listening to me. The third event was a pustule of skin on my stomach. He told me… to apply topical antibiotics to it, and showed me the "correct way" to put a bandage on sterilely. The next day, the whole surrounding area was breaking out, was red, and had multiple raised areas. Off to urgent card again! This is another situation where if he told me "come back if it gets worse" I would have saved money. Instead, I went to urgent care, and they put my on TWO antibiotics. Unless you are in the habit of asking "What if your suggestion doesn't work", I would avoid this doctor like the plague.