John A Ebner, DO FAAD

Never even got as far as seeing the doctor. I was sitting in the exam room, when a 20-​something male assistant walked in with a camera and aimed it right at my face. No explanation at all.
He just got into position to take my photo.
I held my hand out in front of my face to stop him and said «NO THANKS». He did a little speech on the way out about how he needed to tell me it’s «mandatory». OH REALLY, JUNIOR? Well, Junior, let me state here, all over again, how unprofessional, ignorant and insulting it is to just walk up to a patient and without even discussing anything or getting permission, and put a camera in their face. Talk about rude and arrogant.
The doctors are responsible for this B.S., because they ought to know what goes in in their offices.
Any office that INSISTS on photographs is one I’ll never return to. They wasted my time as well as the fuel I wasted getting there. I should have sent them a bill, but I walked out on them and that was good enough.

I went to see Dr. Ebner with Arizona Dermatology. The appointment was at 3:30. The office said that they wanted me to arrive by 3:00 to fill out some paperwork. This was our first time visit to the office, and we got there around 3: 22. The office staff gave us the paperwork, and I had two pages of just signatures left, when, at 3:30, the staff then told me that the doctor would not see me since I arrived too late. When I asked about this, the staffer told me that the doctor had been asked and said that he couldn’t take me because he was running late and had a meeting at 4:30. I find this outrageous. I would have been ready to be seen only one minute after the time of the appointment, and since the doctor was running late he would not have been ready when I was. Further, if I was really too late to be seen the staff should have told me when I arrived, not after I filled out several pages full of personal health information. Clearly, my late arrival was not the real reason why I was not seen; it was used as an excuse not to see me and to prioritize a meeting over patient care. I will never ever return to this office.

I always believed that my husband and I had impeccable immune systems, if we could survive without frequently falling sick in India we could survive anywhere in this world. I didn’t realise that years of staying in a first world country has programmed his system to be different. So when he developed a rash on his body I was petrified.
We didn’t want to go through the usual procedure of visiting a general physician and then getting referred to a dermatologist who would probably see us after two months. So I frantically called all dermatologists in and around Phoenix. Since my husband has reservations about having to strip in front of a lady doc, we chose Dr. John A. Ebner at Arizona Dermatology.
Before we went there I had a premonition that we would get caught up in the American healthcare trap, the doc would get startled by the rash and put him through a zillion tests. Proving me totally wrong Dr. Ebner knew exactly what it was when he looked at him. He said that it was a viral infection, the cause is unknown but is common and it happens in spring/​fall. He assured us that there was nothing to worry about.
Until now I thought that all diseases were serious but I guess having minor pathological reactions to the seasons is the American way of life.