Dr. Maricar Francisco Malinis, MD

This could not have been a worse experience. She literally came into the exam room and introduced herself with, "this isn't an infectious disease" before I could even tell her the details of current symptoms and exposure (very exotic, risky rural international travel--it's likely I had giardia). I then got to hear all about how her upscale patients get sick after cruises, get anxious, and demand hundreds of dollars of tests for what turn out to normal illness, so she "doesn't order unnecessary tests"--but she did order a celiac test, even though I had had a negative blood test for it just a few years before. Because Occam's razor says it must have been adult onset celiac that just happened to mimic parasitic illness and to be timed perfectly, coincidentally with third world travel (urban and rural). She did order a stool sample--and I found out when I got to Quest that she had given me none of the necessary prep instructions (freezing) or even both containers. I waited for… Quest to get to her and then get back to me but before that could happen, my doc and I got a letter explaining (sans stool sample or any blood tests for parasites) that I didn't have an infectious disease. All of this of course could be open to clinical "interpretation," excuses, etc., but here is what is NOT up for interpretation: When asked if I "slept with men or women," I very explicitly spelled out my heterosexual orientation, testing history of HIV of myself and all my partners and lack of sexual exposure since the most recent test. Imagine how surprised I and my doctor were when he pulled up her electronic records for the visit and she indicated in her narrative notes (in my permanent electronic record) that I was "a bisexual who refused HIV testing even after the risks were explained to [the patient]." If something a patient spells out that clearly and unambiguously--with no room for interpretation, unless she just thought I "looked" like a bisexual who had risky sex and lied to doctors about it--ends up recorded as the complete opposite in the records, ask yourself what else might not be happening during the kind of visit you only schedule when you've been very ill for a long time (the wait to get an appointment at the practice was 6 weeks).