If I could give zero or negative stars I would. I seriously cannot believe this guy is in business. Dr. Soden was the rudest, most condescending, unprofessional, callous, and indifferent to the needs, thoughts, feelings, and time of his patients. You could not pay me to go back to him. I walked out before we had finished because I could not believe how poorly he was treating me, and I certainly wasn't going to start any procedures that would require me to come back. I have sent a formal letter of complaint to my insurance company about this issue and have called my credit card company to stop payment on the co-pay, since we didn't complete the appointment due to his unprofessionalism and rudeness.
I arrived on time for my appointment, but it was over an hour before the doctor actuall saw me. He saw me looking outside the room I was waiting in and said "I'll be with you shortly." I said, "Ok, 'cause my was for an hour ago." Then he replied, "Well, sometimes it takes longer." Fine, I get it, this wasn't the first time I'd been to a doctor who crammed patients in to make more money, thus making everyone wait longer. It's not my favorite thing, but I can deal with waiting.
When he finally did get to me, he asked me why I was there (he didn't even glance at the form I had filled out explaining just that, he was in a hurry). I starting telling him about the first of my reasons, the skin around my eyes was very dry, as a remnant of severe allergy reactions I had had, that my allergist had helped heal. We had gone through a lot of steps with the allergist that would save time, test, and money with the dermatologist, but he didn't want to hear anything. I still was sure to explain everything so he would have the full picture, but he reaction was just, "well, was this doctor a dermatolgist, or just an allergist?" I understand that different specialists have different focuses, but they can still overlap in some areas, and he could at least have respectfully listened to what had happened to get all the information he could. He started rattling off all these new soaps and things I should do to my face, not even acknowledging the information I had provided or trying to explain how he was going to build on it and why that was necessary. I was quite uncomfortable by this point, but I could deal with it, since so far I just had to use different soaps in hopes of helping the skin around my eyes.
Then he got up and was ready to rush to the next patient without checking to see if there were other reasons I was there. So I stopped him and had him look at some moles on my back. He had me strip and rotate, which I know is standard procedure, but his manner made me very uncomfortable, then told me to get dressed, then started writing, then had me strip and do the whole thing again. My guess is he was going so fast that he didn't even remember what he just saw to write on the form. He said that there were at least 3 moles that should come off as a precaution. Then he said that he won't take off more than 1 during a visit because "the lab can get confused." Now I'm no scientist, but the lab is receiving many different samples of all kinds of things for testing all the time. As long as you have the right barcode sticker on, there shouldn't be any more risk of confusing my samples with each other as confusing my samples with other peoples' samples. But, by having me come back 3 more times instead of doing them all today, or coming back just ones, he can charge me 3 more copays and charge my insurance for 3 full visits. When I said, "I'd rather have them taken off all at once to avoid having to come back 3 more times and paying the co-pay 3 more times," he said, "You will if you want them to be taken off here."
Now I wish I could convey with typed words the feelings of uncomfortableness and humility that were only exacerbated by shock when he he went from just ignoring my thoughts to treating me like I was some lowly pion who was asking this great favor for him to treat me. This is when I picked up my things and said, "If you ever learn to treat your patients with respect and care, give me a call." I walked out of the exam room. I stopped to say goodbye and thankyou to the receptionist and to check out yelp.com in a few hours because Dr. Soden was the rudest, most inconsiderate, condescending doctor I had ever seen and would not be back. Dr. Soden had followed me out, and after I had said this to the receptionist, he said, "Good, we wouldn't want to have you anyway." Regardless of anything, it is completely inappropriate for a doctor to say something like that. I was completely shocked that such a person could be in business for so long and treat people so badly. This goes beyond clashing personalities or my expectations being too high, this guy was rude, inappropriate, and cared more about pushing more people through for the money than actually caring about his patients. Unbelievable. read more