I am 52 yo woman, and after having difficulty managing the symptoms of menopause, I sought out someone who specialized in hormone-related health care. I was hopeful I would be finally getting the help I needed. I had blood work drawn prior to my first visit, so at my first visit, she would go over the results. At my first visit, she sat down, whipped open the file, and started with “ok, so here’s what we’re looking at”. There was no “Hello, I’m Dr. Cortez, nice to meet you. Why are you here? What’s going on?” Etc. NOTHING. Not an introduction, not a 2-minute pause to hear what I had to say, nothing. All she did was go over the blood work, and go over it fast. So fast, I couldn’t keep up. She was clearly in a rush the whole time. I tried taking notes, and asking questions, and she answered them, but it was obvious she was rushing though my appt. She maybe spent 12 minutes with me, tops. She said I had some inflammation and suggested I take an expensive food sensitivity… test,to see what those results came back with and go from there. She rushed out of the room, sent her nurse back with the script for medicines we discussed, and didn’t say goodbye or anything. I was deflated. I left there confused, and not feeling like she even heard me or cared about my concerns. I decided to go forward with the testing, hoping this was not a typical visit, and give it another chance.
The blood work from the food sensitivity test took 4-5 weeks to come back. They office said they would call me when it did, but they never did. I called to check on it and they were like “oh yes, it came in last week”. I made the appt to go over the results, hoping this time would be different. It wasn’t. She barged in the room, whipped open the file, and started rambling about how I had systemic candidiasis and was putting me on super strong antibiotics for 30 days. Once again, she rushed through the results of the test, basically just explaining how to read the results. I left this appointment the same as before – confused, deflated, and rushed out. I even said something to the girl at the check out station, and her response is “Yeah, she moves really fast. We can’t even keep up with her sometimes. If you want someone slower and more thorough, you should see the NP here that has been trained by Dr. Cortez”. Um, no… I’m paying (and my insurance is paying) to see the DOCTOR. I knew right then I would never go back here.
I was very hesitant about taking these antibiotics, especially knowing how strong they were and for 30 days straight. Dr. Cortez never discussed what the side effects were, or anything. Just “here, take these” kind of attitude. I did not fill the script.
The lab that performed the food test offered a 30-minute consult to go over my specific results. The lady from the lab was extremely helpful, detailed, and went over everything with me. When I told her that Dr. Cortez said I had systemic candidiasis and prescribed strong antibiotics, she asked me if she did the organic acid test, which was the main test that would prove if I had this. I said no. She said “then I would recommend you get that test done before taking those antibiotics”. I immediately had my regular GP doctor do this test and got the results today – NORMAL. While I was gratefully relieved with the results, I was infuriated that Dr. Cortez would prescribe such a super-strong treatment on me, without having done more tests, without having even cared about what could happen to me by taking these, or expressing any other concern other than “write a script”. I think it’s disgusting and beyond negligent that she treated me the way she did, but so nonchalantly prescribed this kind of treatment, when we didn’t do the test to determine her diagnosis in the first place. I came here seeking HELP. And was basically dismissed. Unacceptable. When a doctor loses interest to genuinely be of help, maybe they should re-think their reason for being a doctor.
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