University of Rochester Medicine Cosmetic Dermatology

Honestly not sure why I didn’t post this review the day it happened, but I want to make others aware. Prior to my last visit, I had had nothing but fantastic experiences, went for 6 years. I will not be revisiting due to my last visit - May of 2024. I had a female dermatologist, Lisa Beck. A male came into my room at the start. I sent him out in the most polite way I could because my eczema is all over my body and I do not feel comfortable getting naked in front of a man. When the doctor came in, she essentially lectured me about how they can’t guarantee a female every time because they are responsible for training residents, and that maybe I should start going somewhere else. Training facility or not, it is unacceptable to disregard any patient’s concerns about what they are comfortable with. I have included a screenshot with a portion of my progress notes, unnecessary information redacted, please read. Always advocate for yourself folks. If you are not comfortable undressing in front of someone of a certain sex, this is not the facility for you.

It takes months to get in, even with your primary doctor doing a preliminary online visit with them first. When I got there they had me change into a gown, and when the two trainee doctors came in they said “you already had a doctor tell you you have rosacea so we can just give you a prescription”. They blew off my concerns, rolled their eyes at me when I told them I felt they were not listening to me, and then left the room to get the main doctor. She came in telling me how her staff was just trying to help me and if I wasn’t willing to listen, blah, blah, blah. She had no idea how her staff had acted, and reading the after visit notes I found so many errors. They left off my complaint about my nails, they got my occupation completely wrong (and gave me one that may explain my face issues, but it was BS so it was more like they wrote their notes to justify they’re treatment of me). They gave me a medicine to take that ended up harming my face even more and told me to take a supplement that works against the other illness I have and made it worse. They never looked at more than my face so I have no idea why they put me in a gown. It was obvious that they didn’t care or respect me as a person. They saw what they wanted to see and showed me disregard and disrespect. It was more like going back to high school and having mean girls tell you how to look better not knowing if their advice was to hurt or help you. And in my case, it hurt me. Just shameful in their treatment of a new patient. No follow up, no real care, no concern. They’re just there to make money and they didn’t see me as someone they could make money off of. They kept talking about how expensive the medication was and how I might be able to get it cheaper through a compounding pharmacy they could recommend. Money isn’t an issue for me, but they made their snap judgment and treated me like a throwaway. Shameful to have so many female staff members treat female patients in such a way. It’s offices like these that turn women towards pseudoscience and snake oil products.

Impossible to get an appointment. I was a patient years back, but had not been in awhile. Had an issue arise and tried to make an appointment. Was told it had been long enough since my last appt that I was considered a "new patient" and needed a referral. Okay. Called my pcp for said referral and was told Dermatology no longer makes appointments, I needed to see pcp who would photograph my skin and send them pictures, then they would advise. Rinse, repeat. What an inconvenient and convoluted process, which really just seems like an excuse to charge me for multiple appointments for the same issue. Nah, I'll take my business to a private dermatologist who will ACTUALLY TREAT ME.

They had a medical student in the room, but didn't ask if it was okay. I do wish they would have talked to me about that and seen if I was comfortable with it. The then surrounded my child with a group of people in a high stress situation. Maybe understanding how that can be overwhelming for a child would have helped. There was zero communication regarding anything involving aftercare or what the next step is about my child. The worst experience I've ever had at a doctors office. Do not come here for children.

I tried scheduling an appointment for my daughter almost every day for a month. They have some sort of answering service in place that can’t access the schedule, so they always say that someone has to call me back. We Finally got in touch and while scheduling an appointment I got hung up on. I called back and was told that it was not an in person like I was originally told, I accepted and was told the appointment was gone and it would be another month and a half before she could be seen. Doctors should be informed that this place is so busy that they can’t see urgent referral patients for almost 2 months... terrible waste of time.