Tirsit S. Asfaw, MD, FACOG

"Dr. Asfaw is great. Calling her office after the visit to set a date for a procedure is frustrating. Your phone system is not good."

"I've seen this MD twice now. 1st time 9 months ago for eval for a rectocele a GI said I had. I saw Dr A for the exam part only which was about 5 min. She didn't take my history, a student did. But she said I didn't have a rectocele. They had collected a urine specimen and did a poist void bladder scan. The UA results came back with high red blood cells and ketones. No one called or left any sort of acknowledgement that this was seen and addressed, even to say "saw this, not concerned because XYZ". I was kind of concerned (I'm a 30 yr career RN) so I messaged about it later. The nurse called me and said it's probably dehydration though nothing else indicated dehydration. She said "Oh, so you consulted Dr Google". I told her I was an RN and she said, "yeah, but I don't know what kind". Super condescending and not the way to handle abnormal results. I returned recently for urinary symptoms for many months: bladder pain, burning, frequency, brownish/pink leakage. I had a culture positive UTI a year ago, was treated, developed severe painful urination 2 months ago, used an OTC dipstick for UTI which showed positive, but already had 3 days worth of Bactrim at home so just took that with good relief until a month later the symptoms returned with a vengeance so went to CityMD, was UA positive and cultured positive for the same bacteria as the 1st UTI (p mirabilis), given Bactrim with good relief for about 2 weeks, and now the symptoms seem to be creeping back so saw Dr A to try and figure this out. The tech asked me to provide a urine sample so I did. The doc came in an explained that we couldn't consider all of these UTIs because 1 wasn't cultured. The 3rd cultured+positive nitrites/blood/WBCs one she said probably wasn't really a UTI because it wasn't >100k organisms and the pain was probably just referred pain from some lower spine pain issues I have. That was pretty much the entire visit. I wanted to see my UA results anyway so went to look in the portal and nothing there so I called and they said no test was done. I asked why they had me provide urine. She said she'd check and got back to me saying they collect samples from everyone but only test it if you're there for urinary symptoms. I don't know how they classify urinary symptoms, but I guess you need to be writhing on the floor or vomiting or something dramatic to classify as being there for urinary symptoms. She said I could come back and leave a specimen before 4pm. I work 9-5 Mon-Fri. I took off the day for my actual appointment, which I have to do. I can't just leave work for 2 hours to go give a urine sample that I already did AT the visit but they decided to throw out. I have never been asked to give specimens at visits for no reason. EVER. And if this is their practice, it's terribly misleading since most people assume being asked to give a specimen means they're gonna at least dipstick it and not just have it go from bladder straight to the trash (also that's super environmentally unfriendly to waste all those unrecycleable plastic cups). If they continue this practice (though I'm not really sure I even believe this excuse), they need to tell patients that they are likely going to throw it out and not test it unless there's a valid reason for testing. Better yet, wait til the end of the appointment and then decide if it's warranted and pee in a cup on your way out. Anyway, I didn't leave there with any new insights, Istill have some pain/burning. I bought my own UA dipsticks and 4 tests (2 yesterday and 2 today) still show high blood and WBCs so not sure what this is all about, but I do feel rather lousy, overall, still with some burning. It sounds like she was saying I should just ignore it or focus on my back pain to resolve this (though I haven't read anywhere that back pain can cause blood and WBCs in your urine). I do regret having wasted a day off for this. Her rationalizations weren't reassuring, there was no talk about symptom management to at least improve quality of life, so I'm still here with no hope of meaningful relief, so not recommending."

"I feel confident working with Dr. Asfaw. She is thorough, direct, compassionate, and has had great experience with which to combine her finely honed skills, knowledge ,and her intuition."

"Dr. Asfaw was wonderful, very insightful and a great listener. She was genuinely concerned about my well-being and took the time to address all questions."

"Dr Asfaw was simply amazing. She was very thorough and spent as much time with me as was needed to ensure I felt seen and heard. She was compassionate and direct. She did not mix words and give complicated responses. I would highly recommend her."