Forgive the epic read but I feel strongly about my experience with Dr. Moritz. I first met him 14 years ago, after I'd had my son with a different OB-GYN in Manhattan. This time I was pregnant at 9 weeks with what we discovered later were twin girls. I met with Dr. Moritz and liked him right away. A week later I went in for an early ultrasound, and the technician couldn't detect a heartbeat. I was devastated. That morning Dr. Moritz had gone into surgery, but within minutes he rushed back to the office in his scrubs to give me a huge hug. He told me how we were going to proceed, that I'd be pregnant again, and in time I'd be all right. I will never forget that. Dr. Moritz hardly knew me at that point, but he cared and took a time-out to personally help me with this loss. I was turning forty, and feeling a bit hopeless but 6 months later I was pregnant again. Despite a waiting room full of big bellies, on every one of my routine visits Dr. Moritz made me feel like I was the most important pregnant person in the world. He took time to answer questions and allay concerns. I knew he had some high profile celebrity patients, but he treated everyone with priority and presence of mind. Plus he had a great sense of humor, which helps when you're miserably fat and your mood is tanking from all the hormones.
I moved to Westchester 11 years ago, and now fast forward to me being back in the city. I had a bad PAP in January that seemed to get worse by the minute, with squirrely results and even worse bedside manner from my GYN upstate, who subsequently joined a practice in New York. The last thing you need when facing the possibility of cervical cancer is a doctor who ignores your request for results and then asks his nurse to call you 2 weeks later to schedule a more in-depth surgical procedure, without explaining why. I quickly emailed Dr. Moritz, and in spite of my decade-long absence, he responded within a few hours, very concerned and told me to come in to see him the next day. He hasn't changed a bit - still caring, present, generous, and genuine. The office is beautiful, serene and well-run with sympathetic and helpful admin and assistants. As it turns out, I have a very rare pre-malignancy result from the latest biopsy he performed, but I'm relatively calm about it. Dr. Moritz is smart, experienced and at the fore of new clinical research. His work promotes natural childbirth and the elimination of unnecessary C-sections, doulas, and alternatives to invasive surgery. I trust him completely.
. There has to be a certain leap of faith that our doctors are competent in their diagnoses and treatment, imagine otherwise a collective distrust -- everyone scrambling around for perfect treatment would paralyze the whole medical system! Having grown up in a large family of physicians ("If you're not dying, you're fine") I've been primed for doubting a doctor's expertise, along with exhibiting a decent amount of hypochondria (a great combo!) I'm pretty sure I could single-handedly paralyze the whole system myself. But in this day and age, knowing how much a healthy mind contributes to a healthy body, I believe that compassion and attentiveness go a long way, and are the rare qualities in a physician that are truly curative.
An entire galaxy of stars. That is my humble rating for Dr. Jacques Moritz! read more