I do not write negative reviews lightly, especially about medical providers. I stayed with this…read morepractice for years, saw many different doctors, and wanted it to work. Leaving has been a difficult decision because changing healthcare providers requires enormous time, emotional energy, and research. I feel strongly that women deserve to be warned about this practice.
This practice may work for male patients and younger women who prefer a highly rigid, standardized model of care and who do not mind a lack of continuity with providers. For me, continuity and trust are essential to good medical care, and I found them almost impossible to achieve here. I would wait months for appointments with a physician I was beginning to build a relationship with, only to have the provider changed days before the appointment. Just as I began to feel comfortable with someone, the relationship disappeared.
The people at the front desk and many answering the phones were also cold and rude. I felt I was treated with more warmth and humanity at Trader Joe's than by this medical office.
One of the worst experiences I had was when I called the patient advocate office for this practice hoping I could finally get help after repeatedly feeling unsupported in my care. The way I was spoken to during that call was so dismissive, cold, and rude that I still think about it. It shocked me that someone in a patient advocacy role could speak to a patient with so little empathy.
I understand this is a teaching practice, and I did meet some younger doctors whom I appreciated and connected with. At the same time, I also had some awful experiences there. What troubled me most was the larger institutional culture these doctors were being trained within. The overall approach to women's health, particularly for women in their late 30s and beyond, felt outdated, rigid, and disconnected from current research surrounding hormonal health and menopause care.
Women's health has historically been underfunded, understudied, minimized, and poorly researched compared to men's health. Because of that history, it becomes even more important for practices to stay current with the evidence-based research that does exist. Unfortunately, my experience here was the opposite. The practice felt out of touch with evolving menopause and hormonal healthcare guidelines and resistant to changing its approach.
At a certain point, I realized I was essentially going to a hardware store trying to buy milk. I kept fighting, advocating, and researching, hoping this system would eventually provide the care I needed, when in reality it was fundamentally unequipped to offer it.
What became especially painful and demoralizing was how little trust seemed to be placed in my lived experience and intuition about my body. I repeatedly felt that unless something appeared clearly on an MRI, X-ray, blood test, or scan, my experiences were not fully believed or taken seriously.
Another deeply frustrating part of my experience was how little urgency there seemed to be when problems arose with medications or prescriptions, which happened repeatedly. Medications were prescribed incorrectly, refills were mishandled, and important details were missed. Often, my messages and requests for help were completely ignored even when the matter was urgent. Over time, it became difficult not to feel that my wellbeing simply did not matter.
What became increasingly alarming to me was how little consideration was given to hormones as a contributor to symptoms in women entering midlife. Yet I repeatedly encountered the same narrow responses: antidepressants, birth control pills, or dismissiveness, while feeling that the actual root causes of my symptoms were not being seriously explored.
Many of the health issues I struggled with for years improved significantly once I finally received estrogen therapy elsewhere. I spent many lost years suffering, researching on my own, and trying desperately to connect the dots while feeling increasingly dismissed and isolated inside this system.
I genuinely believe it can be dangerous for women in their late 30s and beyond to rely on practices that are not meaningfully educated in modern menopause and hormonal healthcare. Women lose years of their lives this way.
One of the most painful ironies for me is that this practice includes the word "Dignity" in its name. Personally, I did not feel dignity here.
I finally decided to leave, advocate for myself, and find a provider who is equipped to offer current, evidence-based care grounded in modern research surrounding women's health.
You must do better for women.
