Help me choose a doctor at Georgetown

[Anonymous]

Ok ladies I need your help. I am expecting my 4th child and this will be my third child delivered at Georgetown. I am a high risk patient and have always seen Dr. Collea and love him. BUT Georgetown has just changed how they handle high risk pregnancies and the Meterna Fetal doctors no longer see patients or do the deliveries. They consult and oversee the case. So Dr. Collea will still review my chart after every visit and will guide the ob on what tests to run but I will now have to see one of the regular OB docs for my visits and for my scheduled c-section.
I'm at a bit of a loss on how to choose the best doctor. I am much more concerned with the doctor being knowledgable than I am about having my hand held and one of my biggest concerns is the actual c-section. My husband and I have always trusted Dr. Collea to tell us how everything looked inside after each baby and to give us the go ahead to have another. If this pegnancy goes well we are open to having another in a few years so we need to trust this new doctor to tell us if it is safe.
So far I have had two appointments with Dr. Finale and have decided that he is not a good fit. He is actually very nice but doesn't seem to be acknowleging that I am a high risk patient and at each appointment he repeatedly brings up getting my tubes tied. My next appointment is with Dr. Wulf and would love to hear some feedback on her. The reason I'm seeing her next is that she sees patients on Friday mornings which is one time when I can come without missing work and only have one kid with me.
Thank you in advance for any feedback!

[Anonymous]

I saw Dr Wulf for a few appointments during pregnancy and then she was on call for my delivery and ended up doing my c-section. I think she's competent and I am definitely pleased with the way she did my c-section, but she's not the best personality-wise (a little "tough", not very warm). I wasn't high-risk though, so I can't comment on that. If you check the archives, there have been a few posts about her - generally negative though. I personally don't know if I would want her as my primary OB (I used to see Dr Buek but he's gone now and I so far haven't found a good replacement). Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Hi. I felt the same way about Dr. Finale. Ick. I am over half way through a high risk pregnancy at Georgetown and have been seeing Dr. Wulf w/ MFM consults. She is not a hand holder- but I don't need one. I am confident in her skills as a doctor and have been pleased with the experience to date. She will follow the MFM advice and has been available and accessible when needed.

[Anonymous]

I saw Dr. Fanale for my first visit and I thought he was okay. I switched to Dr. Yuri and both my husband and I really like him a lot. Of course, I am not high risk and so I can't speak to his particular expertise with that. This is my first pregnancy and it has been routine and easy. For that, Dr. Yuri has been fantastic!

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry to hear that they changed their practice. Honestly, I would consider going to another practice with MFMs that will see you as a primary patient. I believe GW, Shady Grove(Pinkert) and INOVA (Khoury) still do this.

I had 2 high risk pregnancies at Georgetown. The first I was with one of the generalists who would have been more than fine if my pregnancy had been low risk. When I developed PE and IUGR at 28 weeks though it was difficult seeing her. She simply didn't have the same knowledge about the condition as Bolan, Landy and Collea. In a few instances she couldn't answer questions that they quickly could. The generalists are under more time pressure to get you in and out. It is stressful when the MFM would change her direction and I felt as if I was getting mixed messages. I was also very unprepared for what would occur and the rotating generalists freaked us out with their inability to explain things in a precise way. It felt like they were guessing and having their decisions overridden. The high risk doctors deal with these issues all the time not once in a while. They do a much better job informing you and making the right decision up front.

For my second pregnancy, I went directly to Landy and it was night and day. Landy, Collea, and Bolan can answer your questions very thoroughly and with research based answers. I had so much more confidence and less stress.

High risk is more than just your lab reports. It was also helpful to talk with the high risk about the game plan. how much monitoring under what circumstances that could change, what probabilities for bedrest, new research etc. You may not or probably will not get that with a generalist.

[Anonymous]

I have seen Bowles-Johnson throughout my current pregnancy and at nearly every appointment the wait is an hour to two hours. Also, like Wulf-Gutierrez, shes not a hand-holder and she is somewhat curt and serious. I just saw Finale for the first time and agree, not who i'd want as my primary dr. I had my first c-section with Wulf and she did a great job that day and was very very competant but as others posters said, the bedside manner is lacking. so, all in all, not sure i've come across any great choices, Dr. Yuri sounds like the next one i should try based on PP review of him.

[Anonymous]

Dr. Gorman is super sweet. My wait for last appt was ~ 20 minutes.

I'm a low risk 2nd pregnancy and not high maintenance.

There's a brand new male doc (not Fanale). My colleague saw for an annual gyn exam two weeks ago and really liked him.

[Anonymous]

I'm in my first pregnancy (low risk so far!) and a patient at Georgetown, and I see Dr. Collie (female OB/GYN, not the same as Dr Collea), and I really like her. She's also been my doctor for many years. She's patient, not a hand holder, but doesn't mind taking time to answer questions. I would recommend doing early morning appts though - you wait less if you're one of the first patients!

[Anonymous]

Given that you are high risk, I would be cautious about Gorman. She may be super sweet= but she is also a newer dr. There is a need for balance between experience and knowledge that I am not sure Gorman brings to the table (yet)

[Anonymous]

OP, are you sure they changed the entire practice? This is a pretty big shift and I haven't heard anything about it personally (doesn't mean it didn't happen). I know they get alot of requests from non high risk patients who are simply older or twin pregnancies which have historically been considered high risk. If you have a pre existing condition (diabetes, renal problems, clotting disorders, CHT etc),you may want to check and see if they are simply booked up with too many patients and trying to balance more people out by sending them back to the generalists.

[Anonymous]

Gtown has changed their practice - MFM doesn't directly handle any patients anymore; they are only a consultant service - I found out because I was delivered by Dr. Brendan Burke, who was supposed to deliver me at Gtown, where he used to have back-up of MFM while he was in the office, but because of the switch, MFM can no longer cover him and no outside docs can be covered by the generalists... This is becoming more common and is a revenue-maker for hospitals.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

Thank you to everyone who has given me feedback. Keep it coming. For now I think I will give Dr. Wulf a chance and see how it goes. I definately do not need a hand holder so that isn't an issue. I am a full highrisk patient but not with a typical disorder, which of course makes me even more nervous. I delivered my first child at GW and will not ever return to that hospital, but that is a story for another email. Up until now Georgetown has been absolutely perfect as far as I am concerned including the nurses which to me make all the difference. I have a feeling the key to making this new system work is to stay on top of my care and demand consults with Dr. Collea when ever the generalist can't answer a question.

Unfortunately, Georgetown has completely changed their prectice to match what most hospitals offer with MFM just doing consults. I had a long discussion with Dr. Collea about it because I was shocked and worried. He delivered our third child in Feb of this year so it came as a HUGE suprise to have such a drastic change happen so quickly. According to Dr. Collea one of the major issues is that they would train new MFM doctors only to have them leave and go to hospitals set up in this new fashion. This has put a big strain on the current 3 MFM docs to not retire since they couldn't get replacements.