Dr. Shereen Shakuntala Katrak, MD, MD MPH

I had been assigned Dr. Katrak after my primary care physician moved to another practice.  I did my homework on Dr. Katrak in advance in order to understand her background and in order to connect with her on the first visit.  I knew something was not going to go well upon first meeting her.  We shook hands and after she called me Mr. <last name>, I said, "Please, call me <first name>".  The next time she addressed me she called me "Mr <last name>".  Her address indicated that she had not listened to how I chose to be addressed, and that she was maintaining a formal distance rather than proceeding to an informality that I extended in order to build trust and level the Provider/Patient power dynamic.  During the initial consultation, Dr. Katrak wanted to make changes to my care plan that had been working steadily.  She wanted to make changes without having any test data, nor without getting to know more about my health situation.  This was the most serious indicator that she did not have a collaborative patient care mindset.  At the end of the visit, I stated that I did not believe that we would be a good fit for a Provider/Patient relationship.  Dr. Katrak appeared shocked, then become very formal and abrupt as we finished the visit.  At a much later date, I saw in my online medical record that she ordered a "Drugs of Abuse Screne, Rapid" without my knowledge.  The test results were consistent with the medications I was prescribed and did not indicate abuse. In the 6 years previous, my Provider never had reason to order a drug screen against me.  I had considered reporting Dr. Katrak to administration for the not only her desire to make changes to my care plan without sufficient data or input from me, her failure to establish trust by leveling the Provider/Patient power dynamic, and her surreptitious drug screen order.  I chose not to file the complaint as she had just come out of doing research and I did not want to ruin her career.  As poorly as she handled my case, I knew that she had heard my feedback face to face, and that my subsequent provider had more than likely conveyed to her my original intent to file a complaint with administration.  I felt that she probably had a learning moment from our interaction such that she could still be an effective clinical professional.  For me, in the bigger picture, our society has a need for healthcare providers and that Dr. Katrak would probably grow to be as good in the treatment room as she was in the research labs.  I am writing this review 5 years after the encounter based on notes I took in December 2017 / January 2018 as I was preparing the formal complaint.  Although my experience with her was poor then, perhaps another patient might have a better encounter with her now.