2 /5 Luke Sellers: Been a patient of a very kind and helpful GI (Dr. Desai) and another doctor who, to me at least, was dismissive and generally a jackass both to me and also to his staff while in front of me, and his name is Dr. Francis (Frank) Farraye. He may be one of the most published doctors on IBD (Crohn’s and Colitis) in the world, but evidently that’s just made him arrogant and given him a bad bedside manner. To be fair to him, a 3rd cousin of mine said he has seen Dr. Farraye and had a good experience.
I would not, in general, recommend the IBD clinic at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, as a patient who has seen 6+ separate gastroenterologists, and is chronically ill. Dr. Farraye was dismissive of any question I had (no, they weren’t stupid “I read on Google/WebMD….etc” style questions), and when a pillcam test went wrong but showed highly visible photos of ulcerations and erythema in my stomach with no known cause, he didn’t even want to retest or do anything about it. He literally made it abundantly clear that he couldn’t care less about my wellbeing or gastro issues.
A comment to Mayo Clinic Gastroenterology team as a whole: most of your patients have butt problems, requiring them to have many bowel movements, often many more than the average healthy person. As you’re (and as any other qualified professional or normal human being would also be aware) aware, this type of malady such as Crohn’s, IBS or Ulcerative Colitis can cause lots of discomfort at the anus. On behalf of all IBS, Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis patients having no other choice than to have their bowel movements at your clinic specialized in treating these issues, I’d suggest the Gastro dept and IBD clinic patient bathrooms be supplied with better toilet paper than the standard single ply sandpaper that will cause massive irritation to an already-irritated anal region.
Other specialties make accommodations for their patients; pediatrics have small chairs and fish tanks and toys and televisions with kid shows in their waiting rooms; fertility clinics generally have no-child policies in their clinics to not trigger sadness in the minds of the women undergoing or having had infertility and miscarriages/stillbirths who come into their office; orthopedics and pain management doctor offices often have better/comfortable seating for those patients with mobility and pain issues…..BUT the best medical facility (Mayo Clinic) has a gastroenterology and IBD Clinic office that doesn’t even offer sanitary wipes or double/triple ply comfortable soft toilet paper for their patients often dealing with chronic irritation and bleeding from frequent bowel movements. SAD. Please take this all the way up the chain of command for facilities management or other relevant parties who could remedy this issue. All GI offices should have high quality toilet paper of sanitary flushable wet wipes for their MANY patients with irritation from bowel movements, irritation from cleaning out for a colonoscopy/endoscopy (if relevant), fistulas and hemorrhoids, etc.
I vote to make it standard practice. If I had the money (but I don’t), I’d establish a donor fund to Mayo Clinic restricted specifically to providing high quality toilet tissue and wipes for Gastro patients in the bathrooms there.
I recommend Dr. Desai, as he cares to help me and communicated with other departments as Mayo’s model of care is framed to do, but Dr. Farraye is not recommended, as he showed nothing but arrogance, irritability to even have to see me, and although I have other complex health issues/diseases managed simultaneously by other departments at The Mayo Clinic, he never would formulate care with communications to those other specialists, but rather told me to get with the other doctors and such.
