Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Northern Virginia

I saw Dr. Eshbaugh for about a year, who was thorough and helpful, but she is no longer with the practice. I typically had to wait 30 minutes past my appointment time to be seen by Dr. Eshbaugh. The last time I was here, I had to wait about 2 hours past my appointment time for Dr. Eshbaugh’s replacement to see me. The replacement, Dr. Stewart, was not good at explaining what was wrong with my hands or answering questions. At my most recent appointment, I was 20 minutes late because of a car wreck in the fog that stopped traffic, but they refused to see me and told me I had to reschedule. It is not equitable that they have no problem wasting 30 – 120 minutes of my time, but I am punished for being 20 minutes late. I am transferring to a different rheumatologist. I would not recommend this office.

Just so you know, I ended up at this center and with the Doctor I got completely randomly. I basically searched for Doctors and centers in my area and this came up and the web page looked ok and they were taking new patients. I was assigned to one of the doctors there. My experience there however, was very poor. They have a very comfortable waiting room with all these top doctor magazines posted, listing their doctors as top doctors for certain years by that magazine so it makes you feel like you are in good hands. But what I found was that the nursing system was completely unorganized, the doctor had no clue about any of the tests done that he himself had ordered and it was just completely unprofessional. He had to go back out several times to get info from the nurses on tests etc. But more importantly he was a very bad «bedside manner» doctor. He had no interest in listening, was very obvious about wanting you to hurry up (and I am not a talker or someone that rambles on, I am straight to the point), already had diagnoses in his mind and then did not explain anything to you. It was so bad that I thought there might be a cultural difference so the next time I went I brought my husband with me. That’s how bad it was. After that he seemed a little more human and better but why should I have had to bring my husband with me just to get treated like a human being? Also the nursing and overall organizational system improved somewhat it seemed. But the final problem which just cant be denied is the doctor just wasn’t up on his field. The medication he ordered is behind the times for the disease I have and to top it off, although he said he would squeeze me in if I had a really bad day when I finally did have a 10+ pain day, the office would not squeeze me in and I ended up calling my husband at work crying because I couldn’t get any help and I couldn’t stand the pain. When I did see him (to be fair they got me in the next day) he upped my medication and then tried to refer me to a pain management clinic, but I have a disease and am not looking to become dependent on pain meds this young in life. The whole reason I went to a doctor was to find a specialist that could help this disease. So when he did that I asked him if he could refer me instead to any rheumatologists that specialized more in this disease and he was very dismissive, stating there weren’t any and that it was just a pain issue. After that I spoke to another doctor I trusted to get a second opinion and he couldn’t believe what this doctor did, and most importantly that he wasn’t even up on the latest treatment for this disease before trying to slough me off to another doctor-​not even for my disease but in the pain field. I don’t want to be totally harsh though, he improved while I saw him human wise (in the way he talked to me) and he did know a lot of things– he may be a great rheumatologist for many areas, but I just cant excuse the fact that if I was not proactive I would not even be getting the right treatment for my issue, not to mention the lousy way he talked to me the first two sessions before I brought my husband. I hope this practice improves because there are many people I saw in the waiting room that are dependent on them and I know they are very busy so I really, really hope the doctors do their best to stay up to date in their fields.