After reading the glowing reviews of Dr. Orenstein, I scheduled an appointment, hoping to establish a great physician to support me in resuming ADHD medication that I'd stopped taking years back. Boy did I have a different experience that those who left the 5 star reviews. The first red flag was the agreement I was required to sign and initial, stating that information about me would be used in his drug research. No Opt-in or Opt-out, it was a condition of his treatment. As he collected my history, he grilled me over dates: marriages, graduations, and employment. I would have brought my resume had I known this would be like an employment interview. I perceived repeated, negative facial emoting from him when I couldn't recall the dosages of the meds I'd taken 7 years ago; after I incorrectly calculated my mother's age and in what seemed like a dispute over the type of graduate degree I possessed. I expect the first appointment with a professional like this to be stressful, but I never expected we'd go from complete strangers to having stale-marriage spousal arguments in less than an hour with the 'no, you said...then I said...then you said...' . Things got worse after providing history on other family members. Because an extremely severe illness affects/affected several of my family members, he insisted I take a drug used to treat what they had, and not the condition I had been diagnosed with. I did not respond favorably to the idea of going on the drugs he recommended so he suggested I could go find another physician to prescribe me what I'd had before. How scary is that? So I paid Dr. Orenstein $339 and he was dismissing me as a patient because I was afraid to take meds for condition I have not been diagnosed with. Our appointment concluded with his recommendation that I read Dr. Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, research the list of mood stabilizers he gave me, and an offer that he'd be willing to see me again if I changed my mind about his intended course of treatment. He said he’d consider prescribing my former meds after I took the drugs he wanted me too first. A little while ago I watched Dr. Jamison speak on Utube, reading excerpts from her book. The condition this woman described, and how a particular drug affected her (same drug Dr. Orenstein suggested) was absolutely frightening. I most definitely do not have what she has, or what Dr. Orenstein wanted to treat me for. Tomorrow I'll call another physician claiming to treat ADHD, like Dr. Orenstein. I hope this other guy is willing to treat me for my diagnoses, not force me to be his research subject or demand I take drugs for manic depression when all I have is ADHD.
Pros: Friendly Office Staff
Cons: Big Pharma Researcher
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