Dr. Larry Jay Tiefenbrunn, MD

Women behind the desk are not nice, not efficient, and talk about patients and families very openly.

I have come here many years but after recent experience I am done. Rude unprofessional staff, smug and dismissive doctor. Better to travel to Highland Park. Or Monsey for that matter.

My 2 year old child was sick with a very high (103F) viral fever and could not keep down Advil - liquid or crushed tablets. Dr. Tiefenbrunn insisted I give her the crushed tablets even after I told him that all she was being able to keep down was water and animal crackers. How was I to coat animal crackers with crushed Advil ?! Finally I called during the night time emergency hours when we just couldn't control the fever and Dr. Robert Fortin was on call and he told us to use Tylenol Suppositories and that is what finally reduced my child's fever. Unbelievably dumb Dr. T. Why could he not have told me about the suppositories earlier in the day when my daughter was burning with fever?

I feel so strongly about the awful experiences we have had with Dr. Tiefenbrunn that I am writing this review--something I have not done before. I'm not even sure where to begin, so I will just enumerate.1. He and his office staff are equally rude and unprofessional. My son was suffering from what we later learned was a pneumonia. He had not slept all night and had finally fallen asleep around 9am. When I called the office, Dr. Tiefenbrunn said he could see us at 10am. I very *politely* explained that my son had just fallen asleep after a sleepless night, and could we possibly bring him in a few hours? The doctor nastily responded that we could see him at 10 or not at all, then chimed in that it was tantamount to "child abuse" (his words) to not bring him immediately. I was stunned, and quickly woke my son and brought him for a visit. Which leads to the next incident...2. Dr. Tiefenbrunn insisted my son had a "viral syndrome" and didn't need antibiotics. Days of fever, no… improvement, my son languishing and clearly not improving. I brought him back to the doctor. Still insisted his "lungs are clear, no antibiotics." That night I got a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach...I KNEW something was wrong. I took my son directly to St. Peter's in New Brunswick. They did a chest X-Ray. The diagnosis? An ADVANCED pneumonia. When Dr. Tiefenbrunn learned of this, rather than acknowledge his wrong diagnosis, he simply insisted my son "developed the pneumonia as a complication of the virus"...that it "laid in on top of the virus." Nevermind that I saw him 12 hours prior and the pneumonia was ADVANCED.3. For reasons I still can't explain, I stupidly stuck with Dr. Tiefenbrunn for a few more months...I figured my son could at least get his routine vaccinations for preschool, then we could find a new doctor. Big mistake. I asked the Doctor if we could separate the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella into three separate shots rather than group them all together, something many pediatricians do for a variety of reasons. I wasn't insisting, just ASKING if this was something he knew about or recommended. Once again (as many times in the past) he reacted to a harmless question with over-the-top defensiveness, waving his hand at me and saying (yet again) that it was "child abuse" to delay the vaccine schedule. At this point I had it. I pointed out that this was the second time he felt the need to casually throw out the accusation of "child abuse" to an excellent parent (me), and that it was not only unprofessional but frankly immature (nay, infantile) to respond to valid, polite questions with defensive hysteria and accusations. He is a small, petty, immature man.My distate for Dr. Tiefenbrunn has only multiplied since finding a new pediatrician--outstanding in her field and very highly regarded. I shared some of my experiences above with her and she was shocked, not only at Dr. Tiefenbrunn's awful behavior, but at his medical judgment: in all 3 instances (letting my son get a few hours rest after a sleepless night; giving antibiotics after nearly a week of fever; dividing the MMR shot into 3 parts) she felt he made the wrong call. (Too polite to say this, she simply shook her head and said, "that is certainly not the decision I would have made in his place.)I urge anyone to find a different pediatrician.