Maura Mccarthy, DO

My PCP of over 20 years moved from a closed private practice to a busy Penn location. Unfortunately, when I called for an appointment, I was told he was not accepting "new" patients. I was initially upset, but now feel like it was a blessing in disguise! Dr. McCarthy is amazing! She was kind, thorough, and effecient. I was anxious about having to establish care with a new PCP, but Dr. McCarthy put me right at ease with her wonderful bedside manner and calm demeanor.

My son and I had an outstanding first visit with her.For follow ups we continued to have the same great level of satisfaction.

Appointments tend to be too rushed as usual, but she is someone I feel I can talk with about dealing with medical issues as they come up.

I saw Dr. McCarthy for the first time this afternoon and things started out well. She was pleasant and politely asked all the questions one would expect. That politeness and pleasantness ended abruptly when I asked her if, should I become sick with Covid, she would be willing to use an early treatment protocol such as the Fareed Tyson. (That particular protocol is reported to have 99.97% efficacy with patients averaging age 60. There are other early treatment protocols that have been demonstrated to be very effective as well, according to trialsitenews.com, one of the only non-partisan places I have found where physicians and scientists really appear to grapple over Covid. If the reports there are wrong I am willing to stand corrected, though I expect an even-handed and fair discussion.) She asked me if it involved ivermectin, which it does, in addition to three other older drugs and several vitamins. That is the point at which the conversation changed its tone entirely, and when in… my opinion Dr. McCarthy became rude and manipulative. She immediately focused the discussion on pure ivermectin, whereas what I had brought up was a protocol that contained ivermectin. She clearly did not know anything about this protocol and apparently did not care to, either. She said that she read medical journals and was thereby convinced that she shouldn’t prescribe Ivermectin, as if that should have ended the discussion, period. As I felt I had brought her a reasonable question and had indeed read a few journal articles myself, I tried to point out that there are a variety of sources of legitimate information (she couldn’t have possibly read all legitimate sources!) where doctors and scientists are writing articles validating the use of ivermectin (even on its own to a certain extent, though that’s not what I had actually asked about). She appeared to disagree that there could possibly be any legitimate research besides what she was reading. Her condescension was startling and upsetting. You can be unaware of people researching some particular thing but you should have the humility to acknowledge it. Not knowing everything is part of the human condition, and I want a doctor who can acknowledge that that pertains to her as well. At this point she was cutting me off at every turn. Next I endured a lecture about how disrespectful it was of me to argue with her when she was so clearly in the right. Yes, this is purely my interpretation, but her words formed such an onslaught and her tone was so angry that I was in a state of shock by this point. That I could be treated this way in response to a legitimate question was very upsetting. Well-respected and even award winning doctors were writing about various effective protocols like the Fareed Tyson, who was she to flat out dismiss their research? Particularly as it might make the difference between me recovering from or dying from some Covid variant? Is this even ethical? Next, she said, “I have seen a lot of people with Covid. I have seen them. Have you seen any?”—she demanded. Of course, her seeing patients with Covid had nothing to do with treating people with the Fareed Tyson protocol, which was presumably our topic though we had veered considerably off course. I felt she wanted to shame me into shutting up. I left her office wondering at her need to put me in my place, she being the doctor and my being—? (Actually, a Ph.D. Went to some of the best schools in the country, where presumably we learned something about how to think.) Even if I had a straightforward and noncontroversial medical matter I would not visit this doctor again. The second star is an acknowledgment that you might possibly have a very different experience with this person.