She raped me.
Yes.
I should have called the police, because what happened in her office was sexual assault of a vulnerable patient. By someone that I should have been able to trust.
This awful "doctor", this horrible woman who should have never been licensed or allowed to open up a practice.
It has taken me nearly 5 months to complete this review, constantly saving it as an incomplete draft, because I alternate between extreme discomfort, depression, anger, and anxious symptoms whenever I have to revisit the mental imprint left in my memories from this day. In the end, I just copied and pasted the exact procedure that happened (skip to it if you don't want the preface.) I kept breaking down in tears trying to write this, and trying to mentally hold back all of the I don't know if I will ever be free of the trauma I endured here. Oftentimes I just stopped after a few sentences because I couldn't face the emotional nightmare that the memory conjured. When I spoke to my psychologist about her, I cried uncontrollably for a long time before I could speak; many sleepless nights and nightmares were spent thanks to her. Please let this be a cautionary tale of warning for everyone; those planning on seeing her, those who are looking for a new doctor, and all those in between.
To begin with, I really wish I could understand why certain reviews here are marked as "untrustworthy" by Yelp. In my personal experience, everything that they have spoken of has mirrored the events that happened to me as well, and I would appreciate it if they were taken into consideration by all curious readers. So on that note, please see my actual review.
[beginning of review]
The reason for the appointment was a basic pap smear, my first ever. After changing my clothing in the dingy bathroom and lying down, she began by tearing off my gown. Hearing no mentions of a breast exam, I hadn't removed my bra. She angrily told me to get up and change in the other room. Acted like I was wasting her time, and I apologized reminding her that it was my first time at this kind of appointment and I didn't know what to expect.
After preparing everything, she inserted the tool. It was sheer agony, extremely painful, and she forcefully held me down as I screamed/cried for her to STOP because it was so painful. She did not stop even as I told/screamed for her to do so, just kept going. She was very rough and didn't use the best tools available for the job until I was already in severe agony. I don't scream or sob very easily, owing to pride and a high pain threshold, but the experience was torturous, roughly analogous to the stabbing pain of root canal without properly applied anesthetic. Impossible to control the reaction. The worst part of it was feeling like I'd been raped; that the doctor in front of whom I was in a vulnerable position, with nobody else in the room and little idea of what to do expect, continued her actions while I told her to stop.
Also without prior discussion or warning, she inserted a finger into my anus at the end. Thankfully this didn't hurt, but I gasped because it's generally not something I expect people to do without a warning first.
It's been about 12 hours since the very basic annual test she did, and I am still feeling some pains. Not normal and now I'm worried for the sterility of the instruments (other patients had noted that the office did not seem completely clean). If I discover down the line that I have some sort of STI/STD while being sexually inactive, I'll know for a fact it was from here.
The only positives were her post-test explanations; I did appreciate being shown the diagrams and explanations of how it was all structured. It just wasn't enough to make up for everything else.
[end of actual review]
I'd spoken with some paralegals on the subject, but unfortunately, as there is no verifiable external medical injury, they had refused to address the case. The best advice I'd gotten was to report her to the medical boards, which I still haven't done because talking about this is so painful, 2 years later. I will however get started on that. It has been a long time of healing, of anger, crying, redirecting internal rage at concerned partners, impromptu breakdowns in front of health professionals, loss of confidence, generalized anxiety, and countless mental loops of "what should I have done?" I'm happy to say that as of today, I am doing much better and taking care to exercise far more caution and assertiveness in dealing with any person in a position of authority over myself. What's done is done, and now the best possible thing that can happen is for me to warn everyone else about this person. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. read more