I am writing this review to make sure that nobody else goes through what I did. Dr. Raffo was referred to me by a friend so I made an appointment for a Pap Smear. First of all the office staff were rude and like all other OB/GYN's the appointment was a few months away (4 months or may be even more).
In the meantime I got pregnant :) Great right? To make the story short, my pregnancy ended up with having to get a D&C. These things do happen unfortunately. I was devastated but not crazy or delusional. Just sad. After the D&C, I still had bleeding and my temperature never fell! Surprised as I was by that and worried about the bleeding, I called Dr's office many times and explained my situation, the NP told me that I needed to stop taking my temperature and that the bleeding would stop, well it did not. Sometimes it was heavier and at times it appeared lighter. When I went for the follow up visit after D&C, I told that to Dr Raffo and she said that my body needed to adjust itself and that would end. She never examined me after the D&C to see if my Uterus had gone back to its normal size after the pregnancy was terminated. This was in the beginning of March 2007. I continued with the bleedings, called now and then, the nurse probably thought I were crazy, sad, in grief or all of the above. Any way, I scheduled my pap smear and saw Dr Raffo in June 2007, I actually think it was June 14 or 15. I remember so well, it was a Thursday, I told her again that I had bleeding on and off and sometimes even heavily after my period was finished. She kind of shrug it off as it was not such big deal and again talked about how body might sometimes have hard time to readjust itself. That next night, Friday to Saturday, I woke up with an excruciating pain in my pelvic area and did not close my eyes until morning. I told my husband about it and he suggested that we go to the ER if it reoccurred. I was Ok on Saturday. The next day (Sunday) that very same pain came back so I called my uncle who is a physician after questioning me, he excluded any abdominal obstruction and or appendicitis so he said it might have some gynecological cause. I called the Women Center to ask for the physician on call and they said that Dr. Raffo was on call and that she will contact me shortly. She never did, ever. Until Tuesday night (two days later) I passed a piece of tissue. When I called the center again, the Dr on call got back with me and said that I had had a miscarriage. I took the tissue to the center for lab exam and they found out that it was in deed an old fetal tissue or remaining tissue. Dr. Raffo, was shocked to hear that and told me she did not know I had problem. When I reminded her how often I had mentioned about the bleeding, temperature, etc. she said she did not think of it much and thought that I was just a little overwhelmed by the grief and so may be that was why I was calling as often. I even mentioned about the weekend before, and she said that she had thought that I wanted to ask my lab results. Come On, Am I crazy to call with such lie just to ask for lab results??? on a Sunday?? The day after that event, I started a terrible back pain and a fever of over 102. I called and they asked me to go for a blood work (that, they did very often!) I went to see the Dr as my back pain was unbearable and was told that I had to wait, after 40 minutes or an hour I left since I could not sit any longer. They called to schedule me to see the Dr. and at that time I was told about the lab results.
Nobody knows what really happened but my guess is that she has missed apiece of fetal tissue inside me. I cannot prove any of that and my husband and I are descent people but anyone else would have sued her for all the miserable, painful months (physical and mental pain of not knowing what the hell is wrong). I just want to make sure that whoever chooses to go to her based on just stars on the review reads my story. She is a very personable doctor, but extremely incompetent and expensive.