Otolaryngologists - Arlington, VA

"I can't believe this happened in my first time visit at the office after we moved from North Carolina to Virginia. We finally found doctor O'Reilly for my child ear doctor follow up. The office is near my house and over to my insurance because she is accept new patient.This time we are checking my child up after school. After we saw the doctor, we went to check out and I had to fill the form for my child's record transfer. My child wears a hearing aid and she saw the hearing aid batteries hanging in out, and she thought she could have one , because every time the doctor and audiologist always give to her or ask if she needed any batteries. She never thought that we would have to buy in this office. She gave it to me to put in her backpack, during which, one of the staff saw the battery (I really don't know her name), looked at me as I was busy filling out the form for my child transfer records, and asked me like I was a thief: "Did you pay for this yet ? or Did you buy this yet?" I was surprised and shocked because I never thought that she would speak to me like that. She could've asked me more politely because we are new to this clinic and we didn't know. "MAM, THIS BATTERY IS FOR SALE, UNLESS THE AUDIOLOGY GAVE IT FOR YOU. DO YOU WANT TO BUY THIS MAM?'' My point is this: I'LL BE MORE APPRECIATIVE IF THE STAFF WERE A BIT NICER AND PROFESSIONAL. I have never been here before, so, of course, I didn't know that at the office you have to buy hearing aid batteries costing 7.00 dollars. I said to her "Really? because the doctors and audiologist I knew always puts the batteries together and gave it to her for free." I asked her, "how much are the batteries." To which she replied,"7 DOLLARS" So I told her my kid didn't see any sign that you had to pay for the battery. She thought that they would give it to her. They should have a sign saying: THIS BATTEY IS FOR SALE. If there were a sign like that, then the horrible feeling we felt in this situation won't happen in the future."

"Dr. Pilkington was overly rough trying to remove a piece of hardened earwax. His rough handling gave my son a blood blister inside my son's ear, and left my son wailing in pain for 30 minutes after the procedure*. He has terrible pediatric bedside manner, his manner was casual and disinterested. We went to another ENT, whereupon I observed that you can be delicate and gentle when doing this procedure, and respond to patient inputs that probably add 5-10 minutes to your day, but don't leave the child in a quivering heap of pain. Everybody makes mistakes, but I had to specifically insist on a second examination, when my son wouldn't stop crying for 30 minutes. That's when the doctor saw what he had done. He should have given us a thorough examination following the failed attempt to remove the wax. *My son recently had 3 cavities drilled out, and he sat through it like a mummy. His pain/discomfort tolerance is really high. I left this procedure realizing that the parent has got to step in when they know something is wrong. Ultimately, the buck stops with us. "