The bait and switch is on with Dr. Bonnington, I'd steer clear of their practice for now, she won't be doing your surgery and he is a sweet guy, but a lousy Dr.
Any more evidence for this? I have been considering going to her
I was curious about this also. There have been a couple of recent experiences that people have had, that have rattled me. OP, please elaborate.
I've not seen any bad reviews of her office until now, and she's who I was potentially going to work with. Any chance you could point me in the direction of the negative experiences?
PM'd you.
The problem with PMs is that all of the people following along who have the same question are left in the dark. Like me. I'm looking at using Mozaic for a PPT surgery, and I'm getting steered to Bonnington for scheduling purposes. I'd really like to know the positives and negatives, because as it stands right now I have no idea which direction to go.
I have an entire post on my decision. It's the most recent post in my history.
I looked, but all I saw was something about favorite dating sites, dermatologists, etc. :/
Post. Post history. Not comment history.
Ah, ok. Thanks. _^
Reddit is a UI nightmare.
I'm also considering her - I'd really appreciate seeing any information you've come across 😳
Lol, I've gotten a lot of PMs on this. I don't want to speak for other peoples' experience, but I was going to write up my consult with McGinn at some point, and discuss the reasons why I've decided to go with PI with her over PPT with Dr. Wittenberg. I'll try to post that this weekend. I do have my consultation with Dr. Wittenberg in my post history.
Thanks! I read your post at the time and it sounds a lot like my consultation with her as well. Looking forward to reading about your experience. I'm planning to do penile preservation so PI isn't an option for me but I'm hoping to learn as much as possible about the PPT results with Wittenberg and Avanessian.
Was this presented upfront and did you have an option? I’m assuming you didn’t show up the morning of surgery and encounter a different doctor?
I'm scheduled for surgery with Dr. Wittenberg March 2021 so I asked the nurse coordinator if there was any change in who does the surgery and she said:
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. There seems to be some misinformation concerning surgeons in our practice. First and foremost, you are scheduled with Dr. Wittenberg for your surgery on -redacted-, and she will be the performing surgeon. Since you are opting for the peritoneal pullthrough vaginoplasty, there is an assistant surgeon required for the procedure. This will either be Dr. Adam Bonnington or Megan McCaleb, PA-C.
If you read the OP's later comments, it turns out they are upset that Dr. Bonnington instead of Dr. Wittenberg handled their followup appointment and that he was too dismissive of their concerns on surgery results. While being dismissive is a valid complaint, I call it irresponsible to use that as evidence that Dr. Bonnington is now doing the actual surgeries instead of Dr. Wittenberg and to post to the community that "[Dr. Wittenberg] won't be doing your surgery". That false claim caused some obvious fear in this thread and a few hours of anxiety to me personally.
EDIT: I've now had surgery with Dr. Wittenberg along with two post-ops and never ended up meeting Dr. Bonnington. It was mentioned that each of them (Heidi, Megan, and Adam) has rounds at the hospital on particular days, so if you're in surgical recovery, you'll get seen by whoever has rounds that day. If you're at a post-op, you'll be seen by whoever does NOT have hospital rounds that day. If you want to see Dr. Wittenberg for a post op, ask them to schedule you for post-op on a day she will be available.
This is my experience when I had mine in June. He did stop by later because Dr W was busy doing other things. She has a small practice so she can't be everywhere at once. I'm going to assume that she did the surgery because she was there on the day of surgery and was with me when I was put under. SHE HELD MY HAND. Dr Bonnington was also there and so was PA McCaleb. Its a surgical team and like every surgery ever they are all there to assist. She even took pictures for me during the surgery and they were sent from her phone. The stitch work was very well done and the sign of an experienced professional, not a new doctor. On top of that none of the interactions I have had with their office has ever given me any indication that there is foul play involved. Its a small practice and all the employees seem incredibly passionate about trans care.
When my partner had a consult with them both they explained that they work together on all the PPT surgeries. Do you have anything to show what you’re saying is true?
I had my surgery in Late July. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Dr. Wittenberg’s office. They communicated well, the surgery went well, Dr. Wittenberg and PA McCaleb held my hands just before surgery and I was put out by the anesthesiologist. They have both been very caring. All of my follow ups have been with PA Megan McCaleb and I really like her a lot. Dr. Wittenberg stepped in briefly to look at things on the first two followups. I chose minimal depth, and got between 2.5 and 3 inches of depth, which is way more than I expected. I’m considering PPT for deepening now as a second procedure and I would have no hesitation going back to her.
Hell yeah! That's great. I'm getting Minimal depth with her in a month and would ecstatic with a nice compact 2 inches. This post is getting me really anxious so I appreciate you writing about your positive experiences with her and her office.
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Exactly
It's true, it's very likely how mine got botched
When did you have surgery?
Aug
So, fuck you. I drove all the way from the midwest to San Francisco a few weeks ago ostensibly to have a follow up with Dr. Wittenberg, only to get rushed through an appointment with Bonnington. I tried to raise some concerns I had about what I feel are sub par aesthetics and was brushed off and sent out the door after a silver nitrate treatment for hyper-granulation. Without informing me of the ridiculous amount of disgusting discharge that I could expect. They tried to get me to schedule a follow up with him in December, which I declined, only to be pestered with phone calls and emails until I finally replied and told them I had no intention of seeing Dr. Bonnington again. Oh and then there's my good friend who lives in San Francisco and is looking for revision surgeons because Bowers gave her a frustrating result and was told Bonnington is doing all consults and follow ups. But I didn't owe you any of this information, so again, fuck you.
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There's nothing cryptic about "bait and switch", it's a well known phrase and describes exactly what I experienced. It's not my fault that the facts here are painful to people who've chosen or are considering Dr. Wittenberg as their surgeon. The truth is I chose her because she seemed like a very compassionate person and I felt like I would be cared for, only to have her pull the same old arrogant, "my time is too valuable for you peons" bullshit the rest of these vultures do. But thanks for shooting my stress levels through the roof twice now, because you didn't want to accept that Wittenberg has become the exact thing we were all trying to avoid when we chose her as our surgeon.
Explains why my results look nothing like her previous work
Appreciate the post, whoever I end up seeing is going to be like pulling teeth, so no point in even looking in her direction.
If this is true it seriously sucks. I was considering Wittenberg since she's one of the few doctors doing PPTV revisions. I'm not super satisfied with the results of my PI surgery and was hoping to do this as a next step... oh well.
Please everyone. The best Dr’s for these surgeries are Dr Bluebond Langner and Dr Lee C. Zhao in NYC they fix every botched surgeries everyone gets. Please stay away from DR.Ting or these other Dr that don’t give you information you can look up.
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