Return-Path: Received: from GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU by K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa12978; 1 Apr 96 16:16:03 EST Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 15:55-EST From: Phoebe.Sengers@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU Reply-To: phoebe@cs.cmu.edu To: bovik@CS.CMU.EDU Subject: allergists Message-Id: <828392130/phoebe@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU> Hi Henry, Recently I sent you some information I collected about allergists. Now I want to get back to you to tell you my impressions. Here is the summary: I don't like Dr. Landerman. I do like Dr. Weber (of Dr. Solow's office). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. What's wrong with Dr. Landerman About a year ago I had been suffering from a terrible bronchitis for months, unalleviated by antibiotics. My doctor decided to send me to an allergist, and she recommended Dr. Landerman. I went to see him and he diagnosed me with about 30 or 40 allergies using skin testing. He told me I had asthma, gave me some drugs, recommended about a thousand dollars worth of allergy-related paraphernelia (for which he conveniently had catalogs), and told me to come back in 6 months. Here is my opinion of Dr. Landerman: Dr. Landerman is obviously intelligent and competent. I have no doubt that he was sincere in his diagnosis. He also encouraged me to ask questions and always tried to answer fully. However, he is about the most impersonal person I have ever met. I doubt that he looked me in the eye once during my 2 grueling multi-hour visits. Also, when answering questions he recites answers as though he has memorized them, giving you the distinct impression that he did not really listen to your question, just lumped it in a convenient category. It would not particularly surprise me to find out that Dr. Landerman was actually a cyborg running an expert system program, and I believe that his treatment suffers the same limitations (no empathy; no common sense when outside of the domain of expertise; no critical faculties). Also, I was astonished that even though I was extremely sick and nothing had worked so far, he would just hand me some drugs and tell me to come back in 6 months (surely he would want to know they worked?!). Finally, it was hard to believe he was not getting kickbacks from allergy equipment companies from the amount of advertising he gave them. Here is my opinion of Dr. Landerman's treatment plan: I followed Dr. Landerman's plan to the T, including buying a lot of expensive equipment and taking many kinds of drugs. I did not get any better until the summer (4 or 5 months later), which probably had a lot more to do with the weather than with the drugs. In fact, I eventually stopped taking the drugs and was better without them than with. I also could never ascertain any effect from the many substances I was supposedly allergic to - contact with them seemed to make no difference to my level of health. In addition, I went on a difficult elimination diet to discover which foods I was really allergic to - none of them, as it turns out. Finally, I was re-tested this year by Dr. Weber, who determined that I had NO allergies. This means I spent thousands of dollars of my own and my health insurance's money and endured the side effects of powerful drugs for absolutely no reason. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. What's right with Dr. Weber Dr. Weber is almost the opposite of Dr. Landerman. He is friendly although very serious. He spent quite some time listening to my story, taking notes, and asking questions. His testing confirmed my suspicions that there was nothing wrong with me. He did try to give me more drugs, but agreed when I said I wouldn't take them unless I was obviously sick from asthma. He is not as busy as Dr. Landerman and takes more time with his patients. He treated me like a human being and answered my questions thoughtfully. I heartily recommend him. Phoebe Sengers phoebe@cs.cmu.edu