Ah, I was going to say I've only seen Dr Sacks or Catherine for my scans but I'm doing IVF. Maybe it's different for Clomid stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

What??? You have never seen your Re again after your initial appointment ??? Who is doing your sonos?

What kind of cycles are you doing?

Nurses do the sonos and I'm doing clomid/trigger/TI. The nurses do reference what the DR says when they call with instructions/results, so I wouldn't say I feel like it's a problem... just wasn't sure what the norm was.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

What??? You have never seen your Re again after your initial appointment ??? Who is doing your sonos?

What kind of cycles are you doing?

It's not unusual in a large practice.

This was my experience as well. We had a good initial consult, but after that most information came through our nurse. (Of course, we were doing DE, so my side of things was less complicated than the donor's.) Our RE did call to check in before all of our transfers, and he also called to congratulate us when we "graduated." I didn't feel neglected at all.

I have seen my RE (Dr. Reh) and Dr. Gordon for most monitoring u/s and that is why I wouldn't go to a big practice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

What??? You have never seen your Re again after your initial appointment ??? Who is doing your sonos?

What kind of cycles are you doing?

It's not unusual in a large practice.

At SGFC even if I didn't see my own RE, another RE was always there to speak to me and explain what s/he saw and make recommendations. My RE and nurse always followed up via phone/email.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

What??? You have never seen your Re again after your initial appointment ??? Who is doing your sonos?

What kind of cycles are you doing?

It's not unusual in a large practice.

Anonymous wrote:how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

What??? You have never seen your Re again after your initial appointment ??? Who is doing your sonos?

What kind of cycles are you doing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to HATE going for my annual GYN exam with my female doctor. Once I started ART I got used to people looking at my lady bits often and couldn't care less--male, female, student, WHATEVER.

You might have to make some compromises if you are heading down the IF/ART path.

I draw the line at students. I am paying for this and can't afford to have someone learn on me. Even for my retrieval, I didn't want the doctors to be tempted to let him "try" to get one of my tiny number of eggs and do it wrong--I said no and didn't even want him in the room.

Do you really have a choice? I recently had a sonogram done by a trainee. RE was in the room guiding her but that's because I was the first guinea pig.

Anonymous wrote:I used to HATE going for my annual GYN exam with my female doctor. Once I started ART I got used to people looking at my lady bits often and couldn't care less--male, female, student, WHATEVER.

You might have to make some compromises if you are heading down the IF/ART path.

I draw the line at students. I am paying for this and can't afford to have someone learn on me. Even for my retrieval, I didn't want the doctors to be tempted to let him "try" to get one of my tiny number of eggs and do it wrong--I said no and didn't even want him in the room.

how often do you see your dr? I really liked dr. Sacks at CFA but I've seen him once - at the initial appt - and nurses only since. I'm in my 4th cycle.

Thank you all for the helpful information!

I realize that your primary doc will not do all procedures and tests but for several reasons I would prefer a woman so that’s what I asked about. However, if you have suggestions for a warm, compassionate male provider I would love to hear about him. Or even feedback about practice groups in general would be most welcome.

I found Dr Gordon (dominion) to be warm and very easy to talk to, plus he answered my many, many, many questions with patience.

I just started with Dr. Reh who came highly recommended by my ob, and so far (consult and u/s) we like her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who also had success with Dr. Abassi I have to warn you that she is very curt and does not hold your hand. If you are looking for someone compassionate, she may not be the kind of doctor you are looking for. However, she is very intelligent and knows her stuff.

I would sort of disagree with this. Yes, she is extremely smart and knowledgeable and she's not super warm and fuzzy. But at a time when I had a very small chance of conceiving due to multiple issues, she broke the news to me and I cried in her office and she was extremely compassionate and comforting. I had two successful pregnancies with her and she continued to see me for a long time afterwards as my GYN, because of some ongoing issues that regular GYNs don't typically deal with, and she knew I was most comfortable with her.

I disagree also. Definitely find someone whose style is comfortable for you - you want a good "fit" with your doctor. Abbasi may not be for everyone but instead of curt I would use adjectives like direct, straight-forward, thorough, honest, relatively unemotional. Many of those adjectives are real positives for me but might feel curt to others. She was accessible to me for anything I needed, including one emergency situation where I was quite scared and she was extremely responsive and caring.

So it's a personal issue about fit, but I agree that it's really important to choose a doctor with whom you have a good rapport. This is tough, emotional stuff, so you want to feel like your doctor is an ally.

Anonymous wrote:As someone who also had success with Dr. Abassi I have to warn you that she is very curt and does not hold your hand. If you are looking for someone compassionate, she may not be the kind of doctor you are looking for. However, she is very intelligent and knows her stuff.

I would sort of disagree with this. Yes, she is extremely smart and knowledgeable and she's not super warm and fuzzy. But at a time when I had a very small chance of conceiving due to multiple issues, she broke the news to me and I cried in her office and she was extremely compassionate and comforting. I had two successful pregnancies with her and she continued to see me for a long time afterwards as my GYN, because of some ongoing issues that regular GYNs don't typically deal with, and she knew I was most comfortable with her.