This is the first hand experience of my wife who had our baby delivered by Dr. Kassenoff:
After 2 years and 3 months of my first delivery experience, I can still not forget you and I need to write this letter in order to forgive you and let this experience go.
I arrived with 5cms of dilation on February 24th 2011 at Mount Sinai Hospital. You decided not to send me home and asked me to stay. One hour later you wanted to break my water which I didn’t allow because I wanted to have a delivery as natural as possible. Two hours later you gave me an ultimatum, either I “let you work” (for me it was to let you rush) or I had to leave the hospital because “I was taking a bed that someone else would need”. How do you find this if you were in my shoes? First delivery, having contractions, dealing with a doctor that was not listening to you and the signs of your body, treating badly the nurses and the patient. My initial answer was to leave and as I was getting changed and ready I became panicked because I was not going to be able to monitor the heart rate of my baby. So in tears I decided to stay, you put back the IVF with such a rage that blood was everywhere and gave me a lot of pain. From that point I was blocked, because I was doing something I didn’t want and that wasn’t necessary, because as you said, the baby was not in any risk but you had a busy day at the hospital. Many hours later when the pushing time arrive, I begged you not to make me lie down to push and again you didn’t listen to me and just thought about what was more comfortable or easier for you. After 2.5 hours of pushing we had to use forceps and my baby was out. You throw her to me with such a hard face, in such a way that I wish you had never been the first person to touch my baby. It is hard to forget. The nurse mentioned you were an expert on forceps and now I understand why, how can you become an expert on forceps? By not listening and caring about your patients, by rushing them, by not letting the body take its time to do the job, by forcing moms to do unnecessary procedures.
Months later a nurse that was that day at the hospital saw me in a restaurant and came to me to ask how I was doing. She mentioned “I am sorry you went through all of that, it was bad luck you had Dr. Kassenoff that day, with the other doctors of that practice you would have never experienced that situation”. I am also sorry I didn’t have any of the other doctors of the practice or that I wasn’t strong enough to ask for a change of doctor.
I was very clear with Dr. Adler when I first came to the practice about my desire of having a natural birth. He said he didn’t understand why I wanted to go through all that pain but he and his team would support my desire. What support? I don’t know how much you communicate with each other about the patients, but clearly you were not following his initial commitment.
There was no reason for you to break my water other than to rush as neither my baby nor me were in any risk. As a doctor, I guess you have done thousands of deliveries and it seems that for you a hospital is a factory. For patients, in particular, first time moms, it is one of the most important experiences of their life and it is your role to be supportive and human, you cannot imagine the emotional damage your attitude, your hard words and your coldness cause. That experience was very traumatic for my baby and me and had negative consequences.
You are a mother of two and I do not know how your deliveries were like but please reconsider the way how you interact with your patients, we are not cows, we certainly do not have to pay for your unhappiness with your profession or with your life.
There is no need to answer this letter, you can not take back my experience, feelings and traumas. I just need to let all those negative feelings get out through this letter.
You have a direct impact on life, use your talent to do good, it goes further than delivering healthy babies and becoming the best at using forceps.
Log In
