Its taken several years for me to work up the courage to write this review. When I was a toddler I…read morewas in an accident that left me with some lumpy scar tissue and a droop/asymmetry in my right eye. It was a relatively minor issue but with age (29 years old at the time I first visited this office) I noticed it becoming more prominent and it was uncomfortable to fully open my eyes.
I visited doctor Brenman, who talked a really big talk and claimed he could resolve the issue with a quick, simple in-office procedure. He smeared other doctors, stating that they would want to do a more invasive procedure that would be too much risk and/or mess up the appearance of my eyes (irony incoming).
When I asked about potential complications I was told issues are extremely rare, that there would just be some bruising in the area for a few weeks, and that if there were any issues I could come back in and he would resolve it for free.
Fast forward to today, and I've spent the past several years in and out of doctors offices, flying across the country consulting with some of the worlds best eye specialists. Why? My face is scarred, I have serious damage to the tendons in my eyes, permanent damage to eye function leading to terrible eye pain/dryness, and a host of other serious, practically unfixable problems with my eyes.
I'm currently having to weigh the possibility of major reconstructive surgery on my eyes/face because of the severity of damage done by Dr. Brenman's simple procedure. The past few years have been a living hell and, at just 30 years old at the time of surgery, I've got a whole lifetime of dealing with it ahead.
However, that's not the worst part. The worst part is the conduct of Dr. Brenman and his staff throughout the ordeal. His staff was unqualified and unresponsive, when I finally saw him his response was "well you have to be kind of close to you to notice". When I brought up the things I had learned from having to visit eye specialists he struggled to answer even basic questions, which is terrifying for the patient. The funny thing was, after he blamed his staff for the poor handling of the situation, he said "I always run toward my patients, not away from them", after which point I could never reach him again - no response to emails, calls to the office, nothing - even when things took a turn for the worse and I reached out terrified of what was happening to my eyes. Wow.
To this date his staff have been unable to provide any operative reports, which are legally required in the state of Pennsylvania, claiming they don't exist. The only thing they could provide is a one page generic consent form with no useful information on it. This is amongst a host of other issues to the point this is just scratching the surface of my problems with this office.
To add insult to injury, the specialists I've spoken to have said this isn't the result of some freak complication or bad luck, but rather Dr. Brenman's course of action was entirely inappropriate for my situation, and it was predictable that this would happen. Had I visited an oculoplastic surgeon (a specialization I had no idea existed at the time) this would have likely been a simple procedure with virtually zero risk of these kinds of complications. Rather Dr. Brenman utilized techniques that are outdated (not even recently outdated, outdated as far back as the 1980s/90s) and entirely inappropriate for someone of my age/exhibiting my symptoms.
If you read my review and still want to go here I suspect nothing will sway you but the last thing I'll say is on a more personal note.
You can't imagine the emotional impact of being a young person with messed up eyes and scarring on your face. It affects everything - relationships, dating, friends, socializing, your career, your family, everything. Exercise the utmost caution here or anywhere else. Don't let a Doctor's bravado convince you that any procedure, medical or cosmetic, is simple or without risk.