Dr. Katarzyna Kozak Crabtree, MD

I was admitted to the hospital and under Dr Crabtree’s care for several days in 2019. My symptoms and my medical history are complex. Dr Crabtree assigned my symptoms to conversion disorder early on in her notes and she told me, in person, that my HR going to 170 upon trying to stand was a symptom of anxiety. When I described my symptoms and we reviewed my HR data and test results, she appeared to interpret everything through a psychiatric lens and had me see a hospital psychiatrist during my hospital stay. Dr. Crabtree communicated to me, and in her notes, that my symptoms were psychiatric in nature. My General Practitioner was concerned I may have POTS ( a type of dysautonomia) and this was relayed to Dr Crabtree who told me “that is very rare,” and then she immediately continued back to a psychiatric discussion. I followed up at a research hospital, after the hospital stay, as my symptoms persisted. The MDs at the renowned research hospital diagnosed me, after extensive testing,… with chronic severe migraine and POTS. I am currently under the care of neurologists, cardiologists and physical therapists that are treating my symptoms with a combo of pharma medications, cardiac rehab and physical therapy. I am now seeing improvements in my quality of life and a reduction in symptoms. I worry that the way Dr Crabtree and her team focused on a hysteria/conversion disorder mindset, when faced with a patient’s complex symptoms, will harm additional patients. I did not feel heard by Dr Crabtree and felt that her communication with me and my partner was condescending. All of my symptoms can be explained by POTS and severe migraine w/aura. There WAS a non psychiatric explanation for my constellation of symptoms and, thankfully, there are treatment options. If Dr Crabtree had looked at my case with a shred of curiosity instead of a hysteria framework, I might have been diagnosed months earlier and suffered less. At the very least, I would not have felt humiliated by an MD whose job was to care for my health. I cannot recommend Dr Crabtree. MM

She wrote such a poorly written discharge summary that my surgeons actually laughed at how many errors were in it. Her inability to take a complicated history and document it accurately was actually scary. Throughout my hospitalization she consistently dempnstrated an inability to make good decisions. In the future if I'm hospitalized I will refuse to have her care for me.