Please tell me about your experience with GWU

[Anonymous]

Positive or Negative. Thoughts on Dr. Frankfurter? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I am currently seeing Dr. Frankfurter and I really like him. I have not been successful yet (3 BFN with unmedicated IUI's) but I like Dr. Frankfurter and the two nurses I work with.

[Anonymous]

I loved dr F. We only switched because the shared risk program at SG is cheaper. He has great bedside manner and takes the time to explain everything. Monitoring there is no fun though.

[Anonymous]

I saw Dayal there. I really liked her. I saw Franfurter for monitoring. He was fine. All of the nurses were wonderful. I felt like I got very personalized care there. They made an unpleasant experience as pleasant as possible. I got pg on third IUI.

The morning monitoring is slightly chaotic. I didn't love it either. But I got used to it. I've never gone elsewhere so I don't know how much better it is other places. Basically they start at 7am and everyone lines up in the hall. You have to stand. If you don't get there fairly early, the wait can be long, especially on a Monday or a Friday (they don't do routine monitoring on the weekends but will do procedures as necessary). And it can sometimes be awkward just standing there with a bunch of other women. But I got over that part as time went on. The most annoying part (to me) was that when I was going regularly (about 2 years ago), the tech who did the monitoring was regularly late. So we'd all be lined up at 7am and no tech. VERY annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw Dayal there. I really liked her. I saw Franfurter for monitoring. He was fine. All of the nurses were wonderful. I felt like I got very personalized care there. They made an unpleasant experience as pleasant as possible. I got pg on third IUI.

The morning monitoring is slightly chaotic. I didn't love it either. But I got used to it. I've never gone elsewhere so I don't know how much better it is other places. Basically they start at 7am and everyone lines up in the hall. You have to stand. If you don't get there fairly early, the wait can be long, especially on a Monday or a Friday (they don't do routine monitoring on the weekends but will do procedures as necessary). And it can sometimes be awkward just standing there with a bunch of other women. But I got over that part as time went on. The most annoying part (to me) was that when I was going regularly (about 2 years ago), the tech who did the monitoring was regularly late. So we'd all be lined up at 7am and no tech. VERY annoying.

I remember her! And it was extremely annoying. But I'm cycling there now and haven't seen this issue. I see Dr. Gindoff and have been very happy with the care and attention we've received. You do deal a lot more with the nurses, but I'm fine with that, knowing that the docs all meet on all cases every day. And if I have more questions, I have had no issues in reaching Dr. Gindoff to talk about them. I've had two fresh and two frozen cycles there, so have seen all the docs and think very highly of them. Our deciding factor was that we have male factor issues so needed to do IVF/ICSI, which requires a great lab and solid lab director. GW had good ICSI stats and I was impressed with their lab team. It's also on my drive into work, so that definitely played a part for me as well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw Dayal there. I really liked her. I saw Franfurter for monitoring. He was fine. All of the nurses were wonderful. I felt like I got very personalized care there. They made an unpleasant experience as pleasant as possible. I got pg on third IUI.

The morning monitoring is slightly chaotic. I didn't love it either. But I got used to it. I've never gone elsewhere so I don't know how much better it is other places. Basically they start at 7am and everyone lines up in the hall. You have to stand. If you don't get there fairly early, the wait can be long, especially on a Monday or a Friday (they don't do routine monitoring on the weekends but will do procedures as necessary). And it can sometimes be awkward just standing there with a bunch of other women. But I got over that part as time went on. The most annoying part (to me) was that when I was going regularly (about 2 years ago), the tech who did the monitoring was regularly late. So we'd all be lined up at 7am and no tech. VERY annoying.

I remember her! And it was extremely annoying. But I'm cycling there now and haven't seen this issue. I see Dr. Gindoff and have been very happy with the care and attention we've received. You do deal a lot more with the nurses, but I'm fine with that, knowing that the docs all meet on all cases every day. And if I have more questions, I have had no issues in reaching Dr. Gindoff to talk about them. I've had two fresh and two frozen cycles there, so have seen all the docs and think very highly of them. Our deciding factor was that we have male factor issues so needed to do IVF/ICSI, which requires a great lab and solid lab director. GW had good ICSI stats and I was impressed with their lab team. It's also on my drive into work, so that definitely played a part for me as well!

The funniest part is that when I finally did get pregnant, she was also the u/s tech up in GW's OB office! She did my 20 week ultrasound. When I saw her come through the door, my stomach dropped (on top of being regularly late, she didn't give the warm and fuzzies). She ended up being MUCH friendlier during the 20 week ultrasound. Maybe she's not a morning person.

[Anonymous]

We did one IVF cycle at GWU. It was our first, so we did not have much to compare with. It was not successful and we switched to Shady Grove shared risk for affordability. Compared to Shady Grove, GWU is expensive, cramped facility, hard to get to for morning monitoring, and not-so-pleasant staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did one IVF cycle at GWU. It was our first, so we did not have much to compare with. It was not successful and we switched to Shady Grove shared risk for affordability. Compared to Shady Grove, GWU is expensive, cramped facility, hard to get to for morning monitoring, and not-so-pleasant staff.

GW is incredibly easy to get to on the metro, which was a huge selling point for me. I guess it depends on where you live/work and how you commute.

[Anonymous]

I don't have any personal experience, but the sense I get is that their success rates are not as high as the other clinics in the area. It might be because they're willing to take more challenging cases, I'm not sure, but I know you don't see a lot of success stories from there on any of the ttc boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have any personal experience, but the sense I get is that their success rates are not as high as the other clinics in the area. It might be because they're willing to take more challenging cases, I'm not sure, but I know you don't see a lot of success stories from there on any of the ttc boards.

But is that because GW is smaller and has fewer patients? They're just not going to have the volume of patients posting on TTC boards that a Shady Grove has, for example.

FWIW, I'm a success story from GW. So look...here's a success story on a TTC board!

GW is just a different experience. It's a cramped office space. They have one office. You'll probably meet every doctor there pretty quickly via monitoring. You'll be assigned one nurse and likely deal with her the whole time. You'll see the same faces over and over (patients and staff). It's a research facility and I don't think they are as concerned about their statistics. It is what it is and they fit some people's needs.

[Anonymous]

I echo what many of the previous posters here have said. In all my interactions with all the doctors and nurses at GW, they have always treated me respectfully. They listen very carefully to our concerns and they formulate a plan for me that respects those concerns. I also feel that they are very good at explaining things. I don't like the set up of the morning monitoring, and that I don't always do monitoring with my primary RE. That said, I can always talk to my RE and they are very good at returning calls and explaining things by phone.

[Anonymous]

I went to Dr. F and really liked him as a person and doctor. He was FSH friendly which was important to me.
I did one IVF with him and was not successful. I went to Shady Grove and got pregnant and despite what you might hear, I had very personal care there as well. Dr. F is a smart & nice man but if you aren't getting pregnant, you should move on to a different clinic without guilt. Hope you have success soon!

[Anonymous]

12:44 here - I should have pointed out that I'm a success story too in my post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I echo what many of the previous posters here have said. In all my interactions with all the doctors and nurses at GW, they have always treated me respectfully. They listen very carefully to our concerns and they formulate a plan for me that respects those concerns. I also feel that they are very good at explaining things. I don't like the set up of the morning monitoring, and that I don't always do monitoring with my primary RE. That said, I can always talk to my RE and they are very good at returning calls and explaining things by phone.

I had a somewhat opposite experience. We really liked our nurse, Frederika, but didn't care for Dr. Gindoff. We thought he had an odd bedside manner and didn't listen to our concerns. We didn't want to do IVF and he kept pushing it repeatedly, even after we explained our reasons. I know he's in the business of getting people pregnant and perhaps he takes it as an affront if his patients don't become pregnant, but we felt like he denigrated our next move (adoption) and pushed for IVF.

FWIW, we did move successfully to adoption and also got pregnant on our own.

[Anonymous]

Worked with all three doctors at one point. Dr. Franfurter is the best. Very thorough. I agree with 8:56 regarding the Metro accessibility. That was the reason we originally chose GWU. Driving is not bad either. You can always find parking on the street. Just watch out for zombie-like GW students who don't look when they cross (or jaywalk) the street.

Waiting in the hallway for bloodwork is a bit awkward as there is no privacy. When I was there, the U/S tech was late too which meant if you got there early to get your B/W, you'd still have to wait for the U/S tech. Really frustrating. Enough women complained though. I think they let her go because one day, she was gone and none of the nurses knew what had happened.