*Trust betrayed, over and over again
Last summer I deleted all posts related to Dr. Raffi Der-Sarkissian from this site as well as RateMD.com. Everything I posted was factual and involved only my personal experience with him. The deleted material included his notes from my initial consultation on April 3, 2002. I always believed Dr. D was fully capable of analyzing my problem from our first meeting. He recognized the shortened platysma muscle immediately and included this in his notes. His notes also state that if things did not improve after 6 months of rigorous stretching , etc. that one option would be surgical release of the platysma muscle. I suffered longer than 6 months.. I was not in any hurry to go under the knife again and the ONLY reason would be to improve my ever dwindling ability to breathe and swallow. The more I stretched my neck, the worse things got. Nothing “stretched” because the tissue had already been stretched to its biomechanical limit.
I returned January 2003 because my condition worsened. (Note: BU did not have any record of this appointment, however, the friend who accompanied me can verify that I did, indeed see Dr. D as she came into the exam room). This time he disregarded his initial evaluation completely. I have a vivid recollection of that day, and a detailed account videotaped immediately upon my return home. I was devastated. He did not examine me at all this time. When I showed him how forcefully pulling up on the platysma muscle at the angles of the mandible relieved the unbearable pain and pressure in my ears, he said he believed my “pinching hard” on that “skin” was causing pain and thus distracting my attention from the pain and pressure in my ears. I tried to explain that this maneuver also helped my breathing and swallowing, and that his assumption about “distracting” attention from my chronic ear pain was incorrect because I do not have any pain sensation on the “pinched” area, he ignored this. That I was able to apply the metal clips to my flesh to obtain relief is proof of the absence of pain sensation regarding the maneuver I demonstrated to him. This is the first hint that something was very wrong.. How can a doctor say one thing in a written report and then negate his own initial impression when my worsening symptoms confirmed the initial evaluation to be correct?
I returned to my ENT feeling quite hopeless. That is when he ordered my second MBS study which indicated the platysma as a causative factor in my dysphagia. He urged me to return to Dr. D with the results of the MBS, which I did in July 2003, once again accompanied by my friend, Erika Hahn. This is when Dr. D told me he could find “nothing tangible upon which to operate”.(See report for July 2003). How is this possible when he obviously believed there was something “tangible” upon which to operate (release of the platysma) in April 2002?
I next saw him on October 18, 2004, which was the date we were filmed together in his office at BU Medical Center for the HBO documentary, Plastic Disasters. I wanted his notes and the communication to speak for itself.
I am not going to reinvent the wheel here, but I am going to re-post everything I removed months ago when Dr. D agreed to reevaluate my case after I literally begged him to do so. I had not seen another surgeon or any doctor again after the shock of HBO- “Plastic Disasters” experience, when I was led to believe he intended to help me at that time. That was almost exactly 4 years ago. In January 2005 I made a final effort to obtain the x-rays Dr. D promised he would order for me through my now retired ENT, Dr. Mucci. My letters and the responses of doctors involved in my care were part of the deleted documentation that is my experience.. a decade long struggle to save my life while doctors have turned a deliberate blind eye and engaged in medical-doublespeak.
Is it worth the effort to re-post this material. Is anyone listening? Does anyone really care if some of the best surgeons refuse to help me because I am smart enough to know when they are giving me a line of BS? It isn’t enough to tell these doctors you are willing to sign anything they want, totally absolving them from any responsibility should anything they do makes your condition worse. If that isn’t a show of trust and desperation to SAVE MY LIFE, what is?
Stumble It!
