Dr. Sam Karim Ajluni, MD

The doctor is extremely busy. My first appointment was weeks from when the appointment was scheduled. As long as you make you schedule your next appointment as you leave, then, you will not have a problem seeing the doctor. The doctor's office hours are M-F from 5:00 PM'ish until whenever the last patient has been seen. I've been there as late as 9:30 PM with others still waiting. All of this is communicated up-front with no surprises, bring your tablet, a book, or anything else to keep you occupied until it's your turn.

I'm an educated student who works in a hospital setting with many physicians on a daily basis. By having that experience, I can confidently say that Dr. Ajluni is an absolutely horrendous physician. A family member of mine was sent to him after being hospitalized. Dr. Ajluni never allowed this person to completely detox from drugs to diagnose him (he essentially diagnosed him while he was still in an episode from drugs he had taken). Now that this person has gone to many different doctors, they have all diagnosed him as something different and much less severe than Dr. Ajluni did. Dr. Ajluni was overmedicating him and not taking any of the patient's feedback into account. Dr. Ajluni once called the patient â??a very sick boyâ?? to our family, as per his insensitive and unkind demeanor. Many of his new physicians have agreed that he was overmedicated and misdiagnosed. Another problem with Dr. Ajluni is that his sister is his secretary and controls billing for him. The patient's… credit card information was put on file with the understanding that it would never be charged without the knowledge of the account holder. However, Dr. Ajluni's sister went into the account once the patient decided to not make any further appointments with Dr. Ajluni. She charged hundreds of dollars without the permission of the patient or the account holder, AND without billing through our insurance. Since our deductible had been met for the year (which his sister was aware of) we shouldnâ??t have received any charges. I suspect this was their punishment for no longer wanting to make appointments with Dr. Ajluni. After an investigation by our insurance, we were refunded our money. There are also minor things that Dr. Ajluni does to mistreat his patients. The patient once had to wait in his office for two hours until he finally had his appointment. Dr. Ajluni would spend barely any time with him (just enough to write another prescription) and would send the patient off, frustrated and upset. The patient wanted to bring our family into appointments with him many times so that we could be educated on his disorder (well, what his disorder was at the time), but Dr. Ajluni kept postponing it so that he would not have to speak with our family. Iâ??m so sorry for all of the patients who suffer from mental illness and donâ??t have family members to keep tabs on their treatment. They are so easily mistreated, misdiagnosed, overly medicated, and abused. If you have a family member who is in need of a psychiatrist, please avoid this doctor and find someone more caring! Find the patient an office that has psychotherapy where the patient meets weekly with a therapist and monthly with a psychiatrist just to check in. There are offices that have teams of people working to take care of their patients. Dr. Ajluniâ??s is NOT one of them. Please avoid this doctor and his office at all costs.

The initial reason I went to him was because my old Doctor retired, and this Doctor was the ONLY Doctor accepting new patients remotely near me. I went through four appointments, and waited 4 hours past my scheduled appointment time each time. When I inquired what was happening, first from his staff, who told me "He schedules his patients for after his daily office rounds, which end at 3:00pm." Why were my appointments scheduled at 2:30pm, as I learned 4 other patients also had been that evening? The waiting room was so full, there were patients out in the hall. All the patients started talking about it amongst themselves, and couldn't figure out why a psychiatrist, of all medical professionals, would operate this way. The clincher was when I witnessed a woman, about my age, who brought her Mother there (the Mother was clearly confused and helpless, and felt she was being a burden to her family) as the hours ticked on, I even saw the Mother shed a tear. It broke my heart. Is this a… way to treat those who are having (sometimes major) troubles - to make them feel even more worthless and burdensome? Is it humane to treat anyone this way? That evening, I spoke to him about the issue, and he explained that his office ran on a "first come, first serve" basis, not on actual appointment times. Patients with more experience with this Doctor new this, and came as late as 9:00pm for their appointments scheduled at 6. The new patients were left to figure that out for themselves. When I asked why he scheduled several people before he was even in the office, or several patients for the same time slot, or why he bothered with making appointments at all, he explained that each night there were always 50% cancelations. I suggested to him that maybe they cancelled because they couldn't stand the thought of waiting four hours to see him, and he got nasty and defensive. I further explained that most people would not cancel if they were seen on time, but knowing that an appointment with him would take up half of their entire day was just too much for a 15 minute consult. Many patients paid sitters, many patients knew that just the frustration of sitting in the office that long would frustrate them to near madness. I wondered if he was carrying out his own Milgram/Skinneresk study in his waiting room. One would think a psychiatrist, of all the Medical Specialists, would be more aware of their behavior and it's effect on his clients. It was pure torture. The torture was two-fold because the patients know that he is the only psychiatrist in the area excepting new patients, and they were stuck. I stopped seeing him after that night, but I've heard reports that nothing has changed. RUN!

Dr. Aijluni was very instrumental in getting a proper diagnosis for my wife. He realized her problem went well beyond psychiatry and recommended a second opinion from a neurologist. Diagnosis was Huntington's Disease. It is always pleasing to find a doctor who knows his limitations. We had chased our tail for perhaps 10 years and found this doctor when we were forced to change medical insurance after losing our GM insurance. Also a very personable and reasonable man. Main reason for long waits is possibly that he never shortchanges the patient he is consulting because of time. I would gladly recommend him to anyone; and have done so.