Aaron Ben Pearl, DPM

I never write reviews, but my experience with Dr. Aaron Pearl and his staff was so unpleasant, I felt the need to write this review. The doctor was extremely rude to me and is moving so fast that he doesn’t take the time to listen to my concerns or try to create a positive experience. The staff are very young and inexperienced. You will notice that many mistakes are made and there is no organization in the office. When I tried to address some of my concerns with the doctor, he interrupted me and made excuses versus apologizing and trying to create a better experience for me. I will never go back to this doctor and I recommend that you do not either. Also, he will try to charge you for everything and anything, even getting a copy of your medical records so beware!

I wouldn’t recommend this doctor upon reflection of my visit and reading reviews. I went to see him about plantar fasciitis. While the ortho sleeve he sold me has helped reduce the pain it’s too tight and has caused my foot to swell which I told him when I first tried it. I was trying to overlook his dirty, disorganized office, his staff that don’t tell you who they are or what their role is, his shuffling between patients and discussing your problem with an open door, no inquiry into medical history, and curt attitude. No thanks. Will be looking for a new podiatrist.

This was the worst Dr appointment I’ve ever had. First of all, the Dr was rude and condescending to his staff. It’s very easy to over hear him in his very small office. All the staff seemed to not know anything, seemed like this was their first day. Once I saw the Dr he kept switching from me to another patient in another room. He kept jumping up and running in and out. It was very bizarre. He barely explained the issues he found with my feet. While I was in the office for about 40 minutes I spent about 90% of the time waiting for the dr to come back. I understand multitasking, but this was way overboard. He told me he’d work on my ingrown toenail when I came back in two weeks. I asked him a question about my toe before he ran out of the room again, and called his response from the hallway as he walked away. Incredibly rude.
I went to another dr to try to solve the issues with my feet. The new dr fixed my toe in about 1 minute.
It was a very strange experience, and I would not recommend anyone here.

This guy is a complete idiot. I have talked to 5 – 6 other patients who had this guy, all hated him. So ADD. His staff is clueless and he orders tests when he does not need to. I am also in the medical profession, and was turned off by his lack of knowledge and professionalism.
Seriously he tried selling me things and having procedures that are useless. He had no idea that I was a doctor, so I just let him think I was a normal patient with no knowledge of physiology.
To add to that, his staff member told me he was hung over. Such a horrible practice.

My mum went in to see Dr. Pearl because she had a swollen foot. She had type II diabetes and this is a big deal.
Not only did the doctor treat my mom with antibiotics, he requested blood labs on her.
These blood labs resulted in my mother discovering that she had a very serious blood disease, which allowed her to start treatment. While she subsequently succumbed to the disease, Dr. Pearl was an amazing doctor and went above and beyond what I, personally, expect in a podiatrist.
My mother loved working with him, was quite charmed, and very impressed with his experience, with his collegial relationship and affiliation with the Virginia Hospital Center and its doctors, and I knew that his care and bedside manner helped my mom get over her natural fear of doctors.
Honestly, my mom and I were/​are very grateful to both his primary job: taking care of feet; but also because he went above and beyond to help my mother in her general health.
He was indeed vigilant.

THERE SHOULD BE NEGATIVE STARS!
Today I went to visit Dr. Pearl about a foot injury that I had a couple years ago, and to see if there was any solution to some trouble I’ve been having recently.
I arrived about ten minutes before my appointment time, filled out the new patient form, and sat back down. My appointment was for 2:30pm and at 2:47pm no one had yet acknowledged me. At about the top of the hour, I heard Dr. Pearl talking to the receptionist/​nurse and ask her, «Oh, is that a patient?» referring to me in the waiting area. He then, finally, walked out to get me.
We went to one of the rooms and he asks what I did to myself… so I begin to explain the incident from two years ago, trying to be brief, and then tell him exactly why I am at his office today. The ENTIRE TIME, he was shuffling closer and closer to the door as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the room. Not once did I feel like he was ACTUALLY LISTENING to what I had to say.
He tosses me a picture book on nail fungus, opens the door, and says he’ll be right back. I overhear him in the room behind me talking with a man, but not about anything foot related. I sat there for ANOTHER 20 MINUTES waiting… checking my watch twice and considering whether or not I should just walk out.
He FINALLY comes back in. And this is he has a sidekick. «Let me introduce you to my Medical Consultant… if you don’t mind, he’s just going to come in and tell you about one of the new pre-​op drugs we’re using and help you understand.»
Have I mentioned that the entire time, Dr. Pearl has either NOT been listening to me or has been speaking to me as if I were a complete idiot?
So, this «Medical Consultant», dressed in a navy blue, pin striped suit with a silk baby blue tie and big gaudy gold diamond pinky ring, sits down next to me and starts telling me about this medication that I’m supposed to be taking before I come in the next time. It’s called Sprix. He has a brochure for me. He says that it will probably burn the inside of my nose, but it’s perfectly safe and he even uses it for cervical pain. Um, excuse me, what did you say?
He then goes on to ask me how many pairs of shoes I own and if I wear socks with all of them. When, obviously, I answer that I have a few pair I wouldn’t wear socks with routinely, he begins a presentation of this thing called a «Sterishoe» that I can purchase for only $ 130 and it will save me from having to throw all of those shoes away. He has another brochure for me. What is going on here?
I call Dr. Pearl back in, and I ask him if these are things that are required and that they normally prescribe or if these are just new products that they are trying to push people to try? He starts the shuffling nervously again and gets ANOTHER brochure, AND A COUPON!, for me for the Sprix and tries to reassure me that this is the way to go, yet HE NEVER ANSWERED MY QUESTION.
Needless to say, I WILL NEVER GO BACK to Dr. Pearl’s office. I am FURIOUS because I SWITCHED INSURANCE to be able to go and see this doctor, as he supposed to be one of the best in his specialty. I felt like a guinea pig; I felt like they thought I was dumb and that they could just sell me a whole bunch of things that I don’t need; That is certainly NOT how a doctor’s office should feel.
If I could get my money/​co-​pay back, I’d be happy. But the important thing is that I HOPE THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO SOMEONE ELSE! STOP trying to TAKE ADVANTAGE of your patients!

Dr. Pearl is the guy to see if you have a sports injury. The guy seems to be an accomplished athlete and an avid weekend warrior in cycling. I have to say I was surprised when he was asking me what type of clips I used on my cycle.
I have to say the appointment was rushed but I got what I came in for which as an answer and a solution.
I think if he had it his way, he would only be dealing with sports related injuries but I guess that’s not the way the wind blows.
Check out his blog:

I had an ingrown toenail removed by Dr. Pearl in December. He has a brusque bedside manner, kept me waiting 30 – 40 minutes each time I showed up, didn’t explain the procedure or possible complications, had the procedure visible to me the whole time and even had me time part of it with my own watch when his assistant couldn’t find one.
He left the door open during the procedure, where I could hear him yelling at his staff (for other matters) in the hallway. The procedure was far more painful than when I’d had it done previously. I could see my toe the whole time cut up like a Christmas turkey, with sticks sticking out of it for a while (for the cauterizing agent), and blood dripping down it both from the anesthetic injections and later from the cutting — none of which he cleaned up at any point until the procedure was over; there was just blood dripping down it for the 15 or 20 minutes that the whole thing took.
I don’t consider myself especially squeamish or sensitive to pain. I get a lot of dental work done — lots of drilling, pulling, etc, and am not bothered by it. And I’m not a hypochondriac — I tried to let this toe heal on its own for months before I finally relented and went to a doctor. But this was a stress-​inducing situation, and since I had little control over it and wasn’t told what to expect, either in terms of the procedure or post-​op complications (I’d had it done once before, years earlier, but the doctor did it out of my sight, and there were no follow-​up complications) — because of all that, I got sort of a «deer in the headlights» reaction during the procedure, and I didn’t get the sense that he and his staff knew what they were doing, but once the procedure was underway I was more or less at their mercy.
After the procedure, my toe stayed numb the whole day, much past the one hour he’d said it would, making it difficult to walk. He was slow to respond when I tried to contact him, and given how the procedure had gone, I decided to go to the ER in case there had been complications that might turn out to be permanent. The ER doc said there was likely nerve damage from the anesthetic injection. The numbness went away by the next day.
Four months later, the toe itself is still healing; the side of the toenail that was operated on angles in rather sharply, and the nail itself has a large dent in the middle, as if it had been whacked with a hammer. Hopefully that will eventually grow out.
Perhaps all of this is normal — who knows. It certainly doesn’t jibe with my previous experience getting this procedure and, more importantly, I wouldn’t know because of Dr. Pearl’s poor communication before and after this procedure. The prolonged numbness I experienced may well be a normal complication, but he hadn’t mentioned the possibility beforehand, so it certainly concerned me at the time.
Given all this, I contacted his office a few weeks after the procedure explaining my concerns and stating that it seemed only fair for him to pay the portion of the ER visit that wasn’t covered by insurance. I contacted again a month later, and now a month after that have no response. The amount involved is too small to pursue this legally, and it was mostly as a matter of principle that I asked.
You’ve been warned — also check out the reviews on other doctor ratings sites like ratemds, where numerous other people seem to have had similar experiences. I wish now that I’d checked those before I chose this doctor.

There is no one more committed to helping his patients than Dr. Pearl. We have been friends and associates for many years and even though we are not located in Arlington, Dr. Pearl has help me and my family (wife and 3 very athletic sons) with multiple foot, knee and joint related issues – every time providing RESULTS that have really helped us.
I would trust him completely with any foot or sports medicine related issue to offer the best, most cost effective advice possible.

I was the first appointment of the day, and he was 10 minutes late arriving to the office. He didn’t really listen to my concerns, instead he just talked at me. He didn’t address my concerns and I left without any answers.