I'd like to start by saying that this review is long overdue. Please read this to the end. It could effect you.
In November of 2016, I was diagnosed with 'high risk' (cancer causing) HPV by my gyno, Dr. Kleinpeter. Although I do have a bit of a medical background, I was unfamiliar with what this diagnosis entailed for my future. My questions were inadequately answered and I found most of them from research I did myself. I even felt that I was given info that contradicted what I wound up researching. In November 2017, I went for my yearly and had the same battery of usual tests run. In late December of 2017, I actually (finally) had a conversation about my HPV diagnosis with my best friend. Her teenage son was eavesdropping around the corner and told his father (friend's first husband) about it and the news spread like wildfire. I am a laughingstock in town because of this. When I discovered this after the first of 2018, I cut all ties with her ending a 20+ year friendship because I assumed she was the one who had run her mouth. My teenage Godson went on to try and take his life that May, out of severe guilt for what he had done. When I went for my yearly in November 2018, I was told that my test results from the year before were clear, I had been virus free for a year without knowing. I no longer had HPV, my body had fought the virus. WHAT? Had someone bothered to pick up the phone at that point in 2017, when the clean test results were discovered, NONE of that crap would have happened. I never would have said anything to now-former bff, my reputation would still be basically intact, rather than being viewed as the diseased town slut, and my Godson would never have pulled that desperate move. ....Had only someone made a call with test results.
I had a year and a half to mull it over. I put off my yearly until May of this year I was so angry. I didn't feel like going back to this office, but who likes to shop for gynecologists, right? I spoke up at that visit and told the doctor of the events of the year before. There wasn't much empathy there, nor any interest in making sure that such an occurrence couldn't happen again to another patient.
I'm angry still. I lost my best friend, her three wonderful children that I knew since birth and I was "aunt" and Godmother to, and my dignity when this information became common knowledge. No one at the office seemed interested in updating policy to inform patients in changes to their test results be they good or bad. Had that simple phone call been made, my life would be so much different today. read more