Many years have passed, but I will never forget this doctor. My first gynecology appointment was at her office seeing an APRN. I got birth control and all seemed well, until I had my period and did not stop bleeding for 11 days. I was severely anemic and fainted at work. I was sent to urgent care, and then transferred to the ER, where i received a blood transfusion and a vaginal ultrasound. I had uterine fibroids that were missed on initial examination. I liked the APRN, but my insurance would only allow me to see an OBGYN, so I asked for a follow-up and was introduced to Dr. McCraven. She was as witchy as her name sounds, stormed into my exam room and scolded me for going to the ER, instead she said I should've seen sooner at the practice in Wallingford. Then repeatedly tried to storm out of the room, as I kept trying to ask questions. Put me on an oral birth control pill, 4x/day until bleeding stopped. Well, Dr. McCraven the bleeding did not stop for 6 months, i kept on that oral pill and could barely titrate it down to 3x/day, if not i would literally gush blood. The increased dose of oral birth control put me at high risk of a stroke at the young age of 23 years old. I called Dr. McCraven those first few weeks, and she dismissed my concerns and told me to just wait it out. I went to other doctors that were also dismissive until another OBGYN finally listened and was eventually sent to UConn, where they removed 33 uterine fibroids. I bled so heavily those 6 months, that every 2 weeks I was receiving blood transfusions and iron infusions. Thank you, Dr. McCraven for not having any compassion, I never would've gained the confidence to stand up for myself and seek care elsewhere. I have since moved out of the country, the doctors in the UK have amazing beside manners, and it was incredibly refreshing to be listened to and cared about. read more

To be fair, I stopped seeing Dr. Hall-McCraven years ago, and for all I know she has improved her decision-making and bedside manner since then. However. I had an abnormal pap after an external HPV infection was already found and treated. For reasons only she knows, Dr. Hall-McCraven chose to describe the procedure I would need as "shaving" the affected areas off of my cervix. However, when I arrived for my procedure, I was handed a brochure about the actual procedure, at the same time I was told to disrobe. This gave me just enough time after changing into the johnny to read the brochure and wonder, "What the--" before people came into the room to prep me. The procedure in question was not "shaving" as I'd been led to believe, but rather a LEEP (Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure). This involves placing a grounding pad on the patient's thigh to prevent electrocution, then running current through a loop of wire which is used to carve chunks of cervical tissue away, cauterizing as it goes. The brochure warned me that smoke might come out of my vagina. It did not warn me that the machine would sound like a table saw. (The cauterization, incidentally, makes LEEP a particularly poor choice in cases where pre-cancerous activity has been detected, as the burned chunks of tissue can't then be examined by a pathologist to determine whether the provider who performed the procedure got everything. In my case, Dr. Hall-McCraven did not get everything, and I had to have a cone biopsy the following year.) Dr. Hall-McCraven injected me with a local anesthetic, then turned on the machine, which made a high-pitched whine that I thought was awful -- until she started cutting into me, which made even worse sounds. I went into shock. Dr. Hall-McCraven, apparently failing to realize why I had suddenly begun shivering, sternly admonished me to stay still. Neither she nor the staff present in the room offered me a blanket or any other care appropriate for a patient in shock or even 'just' shivering when they needed to hold still. For reasons that I expect are obvious, I never went back to Dr. Hall-McCraven, or her practice. read more