West Chester Urgent Care

First - I have been to this urgent care to have an abscess drained before. It was about a year ago and they did a good job. But now they are under new management with new staff. When I arrived I got checked in and taken to a room fairly quickly. I then waited a little over (1) hour before being seen by a nurse practitioner. She immediately told me she had never drained an abscess and nobody was available to do it until Friday - (4) days away. She gave me an antibiotic script and sent me on my way. Now this morning the abscess is much larger and I have to go back to a different urgent care that has staff who are actually able to provide medical treatment. At their request, I paid a little over half of my copay at the time I checked in. I am considering asking for that back, but they did provide the antibiotics I would likely have needed whether it was drained or not. My history with these has more often than not included MRSA infections so I don't think she was just blindly throwing antibiotics at a problem. But if they try to bill me any more money, I am certainly not paying. And under any circumstances I will not return to this urgent care facility. I could have saved my time and money by going somewhere else or staying home.

I should start this review by saying upfront that I have a Ph.D. in microbiology. I mention this to emphasize that I know the dangers of antibiotic misuse and do not expect unwarranted treatment. I went to West Chester Urgent Care for treatment of strep throat, with obvious problems on my tonsils (pus and some bacterial growth visible on my tonsils). I knew that I had a Streptococcus infection because I cultured my own throat earlier in the day to confirm that my infection was bacterial rather than viral. Most doctors do a Rapid Strep test when people come in with suspected strep throat. This test has approximately 75-85% sensitivity (meaning that 15-25% of people who have a bacterial Strep infection will not be detected by this rapid test. It is faster than culturing, but lousy at diagnosis. Good doctors will always send off for a culture in the event that the rapid test is negative). The initial assistant, who smelled so strongly of cigarettes that it was hard to breathe, took my blood pressure and asked standard questions, then went to swab my throat for the Rapid Strep test. However, rather than swabbing the obviously infected tonsils, she swabbed deep in the back of my throat, where there was no infection. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I saw the doctor on call. She told me that the Rapid Strep test was negative, meaning that my infection was viral. At this point, I told her of my microbiology training and showed her the culture that I did earlier that day (a standard test that any introductory microbiology class does and understands). She laughed at me, said "that's cute" of my culture plate, and checked my ears. She refused to send a sample off for confirmatory culture analysis. She proceeded to tell me that I had an ear infection (I did not). She told me to take echinacea for my "viral" throat infection, and prescribed antibiotics for my "ear infection." I left and immediately looked in the scientific literature to see if the antibiotic that was prescribed for the "ear infection" would be effective against Streptococcus species that cause strep throat. It was listed as having zero efficacy against this particular bacterial infection. I did not take these antibiotics as to not contribute to antibiotic resistance problems and to not make myself susceptible to the side effects of taking unnecessary antibiotics. The next day, I made an appointment with a different, much more competent doctor. The Rapid Strep test done at that office was also negative, but this office sent the swab off for culture analysis. A bacterial Streptococcus infection was confirmed by the culture test. He was also concerned that I was prescribed antibiotics for an infection that I did not have. I was prescribed proper antibiotics and recovered quickly. I would avoid West Chester Urgent Care at all costs.

Was a long wait and a short visit.

I have been seeing her for thirteen years now. She is a great doctor. My overall experience with her has been excellent. I will continue seeing her.

She is very good. She takes the time with you and answers all your questions. I have never been dissatisfied with the service there. The one gentleman who works for her is always very friendly and always talks to me and jokes a little. I have taken my mother there too. I go there about every six months but they remember her and ask how she is doing. They are just very personable. They only thing that they can improve upon is that it is very hard to get someone on the phone there if we want to make an appointment. You mostly get voicemail because they are not answering the phone, and if you do get someone, they put you on hold and then you have to wait for ever. I have sometimes hung up and called back later.

She is excellent and there is no other word that better describes her. She explains things to you very thoroughly, when she does my blood work every three months she will always call within three or four days with the results, and the office staff and atmosphere is excellent.