Mary J Ward's Online Review Report Card

We feel so grateful! Dr. Ward is amazing. This was our second eval with her after 3 years. She is so resourceful, knowledgeable and she gets it!! Couldn't ask for more for my son Luke and our family! After speaking to her I feel 1000% better. Thank you!!

Stay away! We felt completely dismissed, lost by her logic, and angered by her snap judgements and disposition. Over all one of the worst experiences we’ve ever had with a doctor.

Dr. Ward knows her stuff. She evaluated our 6 year old son, and spent so much time with us, his parents giving us a plan and resources. Her support was amazing. She understands, is straight to the point and gets it. We feel so grateful.

I just had 3.5 virtual meeting with Dr. Ward to discuss my 6 year old son. She could not have been more thorough, thoughtful and respectful. We are coming to her for an eval for ASD. I can't say enough good things from this first lengthy first meeting of which she spent extra time with me giving me advice, reassurance and I can really tell she knew what she was talking about and felt she understood. Grateful for doctors like this!

Dr Ward was warm, patient, and listened well to my family's concerns. She gave very insightful (and very practical!) advice and resources, and really took the time to figure out how best to help us. We felt that she gave helpful answers to our questions, and was kind, reassuring and compassionate as well as analytical and with extensive experience in the field. Loved her!

Dr Ward was warm, patient, and listened well to my family's concerns. She gave very insightful (and very practical!) advice and resources, and really took the time to figure out how best to help us. We felt that she gave helpful answers to our questions, and was kind, reassuring and compassionate as well as analytical and with extensive experience in the field. Loved her!

Overall, a disappointing experience. We felt that Dr. Ward had a horrible bedside manner, some outdated and traditional child-rearing views, and very loose boundaries. To us, she seemed irritable, more invested in getting through her spiel, and in making snap judgments along the way. We were no more than 15-20 minutes into the appointment when Dr. Ward, openly agitated in our estimation by what she was “sensing as tension” between my husband and me, abruptly detoured our conversation by blurting out, “I’m not a marriage counselor!” before claiming “divorce is really, really bad for kids!” Despite our disagreeing with what we felt was a premature and reactionary assessment of us and a definitive commentary on divorce, she pressed on about how bad lawyers are and how mediation is the way to go ... ok, whoa! Ugh. I could go on, but I won’t. In summary, we left feeling disconnected and judged. A horrible experience, particularly because we were so eager to make a connection with someone who could help us help our child. ***Update*** After spotting several issues with my bill and my insurance claim , I requested a copy of the doctors records. To my shock, the doctors report was REPLETE with erroneous statements my husband and I made. In her summary, the doctor essentially incorrectly claimed our child was essentially having issues at school with the teacher for being insubordinate, and disrespectful, which had never happened. The doctor also grossly exaggerated the degree to which we claimed our daughter was having tantrums. Our daughter hadn’t tantrumed in over 6 months when she suddenly began having nightmares and tantrums about going to school. Tantrumming 6 months later is unrelated to why she tantrumed 6 months earlier and has nothing to do with our parenting. The doctor misrepresented why and the degree to which my husband and I were at odds with each other in her office. We have different parenting styles based on how we were each raised. I felt his inability to cope with a crying child who is 5 and spirited was more related to that than to my child having something “wrong” with her for having and expressing feelings, and that the expectation that kids be “seen and not heard.” was seriously outdated and a fundamentally poor parenting practice. The doctor also listed a medical diagnosis yet we hardly got a chance to speak about all the issues or to any depth about those we did touch on, and, more importantly, the doctor never met my daughter! We were there for a CONSULT without our child because we stated we were interviewing a few psychologists first. I am in the process of having to submit a request for an amendment to the record. If Weill Cornell or the good doctor refuse to make the change, then I will have to submit the amendment to the health department to be attached to our child’s record. UNREAL!

Overall, a disappointing experience. We felt that Dr. Ward had a horrible bedside manner, some outdated and traditional child-rearing views, and very loose boundaries. To us, she seemed irritable, more invested in getting through her spiel, and in making snap judgments along the way. We were no more than 15-20 minutes into the appointment when Dr. Ward, openly agitated in our estimation by what she was "sensing as tension" between my husband and me, abruptly detoured our conversation by blurting out, "I'm not a marriage counselor!" before claiming "divorce is really, really bad for kids!" Despite our disagreeing with what we felt was a premature and reactionary assessment of us and a definitive commentary on divorce, she pressed on about how bad lawyers are and how mediation is the way to go ... ok, whoa! Ugh. I could go on, but I won't. In summary, we left feeling disconnected and judged. A horrible experience, particularly because we were so eager to make a connection with someone who could help us help our child.***Update*** After spotting several issues with my bill and my insurance claim, I requested a copy of the doctors records. I was shocked to to find the doctor's report was REPLETE with misleading summaries. In the report, the doctor implies that my husband and I conveyed a great many things that we just simply did NOT. The doctor suggests that we reported our child was having issues at school because she was being insubordinate or inappropriately outspoken. We never stated this, implied this, and it has never been the case. The doctor's summary also exaggerates the degree to which we claimed our daughter was having tantrums. We reported that our daughter hadn't tantrumed in over 6 months (when she was 5), but that she suddenly began having nightmares and tantrums about going to school after an incident at school that she found frightening. The doctor baselessly links the sudden onset of nightmares and tantrums to our not being more punitive. She told us that tantrums are "abnormal" and inappropriate for a then 5.5 year old and that we needed to "walk away" when they occurred, implying that we are being permissive if we didn't and that we were not giving our child firm limits there. She erroneously links my allowing our daughter to express her feelings about feeling jealousy over a sibling being born 3.5 years earlier to her being outspoken as in inappropriately so. All I did was try to explain my daughters temperament to the doctor, stating that she's a spirited kid and as such has big feelings, high energy, is very inquisitive, and has a strong sense of fairness. I explained that although my husband and I come from different racial and parenting style backgrounds, we are both pursuing the same parenting style (essentially high expectations with high support and guidance). Part of that is normalizing feelings, openly discussing them, but that we have very clear and consistent behavioral expectations. You can feel what you feel, but you cannot do or say whatever you want because of what you feel. I was not aware that kids had control over tantrums, or that tantrums are considered a behavioral issue. Allowing our child to have their feelings and to speak openly about them somehow got translated into how she will be outspoken in an inappropriate way. We volunteered that we each come from different parenting styles and that our triggers to tantrums and how we respond to tantrums might be more based on that. The tension was about the triggers. We were in no way implying that we were there because we felt the tantrums were inappropriate. We were there because we wanted to know how to handle better this school specific anxiety which suddenly emerged and was the basis for the tantrums but that we were unfortunately sometimes getting triggered. The doctor implied that our not walking away during the tantrum was our being permissive. She wanted us to tell our child that she was being inappropriate and that the behavior would not be tolerated. The good doctor also listed a medical diagnosis for our daughter. We hardly got a chance to touch on the issues or interview the doctor with all the disjointedness, let alone discuss anything to any significant degree. But, more importantly, the doctor never met my daughter! We were there for a CONSULT in order to interview the doctor. She even incorrectly has it listed that our daughter was referred to her by our Pediatrician. Our child was never referred to her by our Pediatrician. We found her doing an internet search. This is all screwy. Now, I am in the process of having to submit a request for an amendment to our child's record. If Weill Cornell or the good doctor refuse to make the changes, then I will have to submit the amendment to the health department to be attached to our child's medical record. UNREAL