Dr. Ruth Elizabeth Imershein, MD

Very judgemental and unprofessional

I went to see her around 1996-97. At this time she was practicing in Springfield Virginia. I was about 17 at the time and my home life was a mess. She recognized some of the pivotal problems and helped me to confront them. No other psychaiatrist ever came anywhere close enough. Unfortunately, due to these problems, I had to stop seeing her. I am 40 now and still think about her often. She made me see things I had never seen before. She helped me to confront the problems. All these years later, I still think of her often and how much my life would have benefited if I was just able to continue seeing her. I will be forever indebted to her.

I saw this doctor recently for the first time. She no longer works in the DC area. Figures. When I went to see her she asked me about my life and my goals and talked down to me and gave her opinion about my life as though she were disapproving of me. I'm no psychiatrist, but telling someone to go and wallow in their own pity and making unnecessary remarks about a patient's answers is NOT professional especially if you are a doctor. She was very rude and referred to how successful her and her family were when it really has no beneficial value to my health care. Not a doctor I would recommend especially to young students in high school or below. She would tell them how they should live his or her life if it was not acceptable to her, or she would just tell you about her accomplishments. Relevance to one's health and making one feel welcome and comfortable is definitely not this doctor's forte.

I am following the last person's statement, that this board was not around when my daughter went to see this doctor so I will add my comment now. We found Imershein to be very rude and extremely judgmental of anyone other than the patient. As parents we agree totally with the last poster, who wrote: "There was no reality check with what young people were all about on her radar." We too found her to be extremely unenlightened about the youth culture and her suggestions were actually harmful to our daughter. We were appalled that our family doctor suggested her at all.

This doctor misdiagnosed my child. Unnecessarily medicated when she simply had a learning disability which required simple accommodations in school. Unprofessional and rude as well. My daughter disliked her very much. Go elsewhere if you can!

This was some time ago, and perhaps this doctor has improved. Meetings were for my high school aged daughter. This doctor was way off base, and did more harm than good in our situation. Perhaps she does best with older patients. There was no reality check with what young people were all about on her radar. Health grades were either not around or I was unaware of them. So I am posting now.