How was your experience with David Olive at Wisconsin Fertility Institute?
We went to WFI because it was the only place that was even minimally covered by our insurance. At first Dr. Olive seemed to care- our first appointment was over an hour long and we left feeing hopeful. But there were some red flags- he refused to do ANY testing (not so much as a blood draw) for me or my husband and said that since I'd gotten pregnant before on my own (which ended in miscarriage) tests were "probably not necessary." He just immediately prescribed a high dose of letrozole with an ovidrel trigger and specifically told me "not to bother" with ovulation tests. However, the date I was always told to trigger was always several days after my monitoring ultrasound and I was worried about missing ovulation. Each cycle I produced 3-4 follicles, but did not get pregnant. For a second time, I specifically asked about having a semen analysis for my husband and was told it wasn't needed. When we asked how long we would continue this protocol before making the decision to try something else, he just waved his hand (as though to wave off our concerns) and said "indefinitely!" He always refused to even discuss anything beyond the current cycle because "this cycle is going to be the one!" Finally on our 6th cycle I demanded IUI. At my monitoring ultrasound, the nurse said to make sure to do ovulation kits before triggering, to make sure I didn't miss ovulation (the opposite of what Dr. Olive had told us) and sure enough, I had a LH surge prior to trigger. So our timing with timed intercourse had likely been completely off for the previous 5 cycles.
On the day of our IUI, my husband gave his sample and we were told to return in 2 hours, me with a full bladder. When we returned, we were kept waiting 20 minutes past our appointment time (with a very full bladder to the point I was in pain) while we could clearly hear the doctors and nurses joking around and socializing loudly in the hallway. When we were finally called back, I expressed frustration that we'd been kept waiting and the nurse apologized and tried to say the doctors had been "giving an inservice" for the nurses. We had heard everything- it was not an "inservice", it was a social conversation in the middle of the day with a waiting room full of angry patients. Clearly they have no regard for their patients or our time.
We were then told that if the IUI wasn't successful, we needed to move on to IVF. Remember, at this point they'd done NO testing whatsoever, and WE had been the ones who pushed to be more aggressive and do IUI, and suddenly we were being told we needed a $15,000 procedure. That IUI was in fact unsuccessful, but by that time we were fed up with the poor treatment and switched to the other clinic in the area. This is relevant because once we went there, they immediately did all kinds of testing on both of us, and told us that the protocol Dr. Olive had me on should never have been done without testing first (due to several risks we'd never been informed of). We also found out that while my husband has a very high sperm count and motility, his morphology was only 1%, making our chances of conceiving without IUI or IVF very low. This means that we'd wasted nearly a year with Dr. Olive, doing medicated cycles that were all pointless, all because he refused our repeated requests for testing. Had testing been done from the beginning, we would have gone straight to IUI and IVF instead of wasting all that time and money. Also, if you look at the SART data for WFI, their IVF success rates are shockingly low, so even if we'd done IVF, chances are it would have been a very expensive failure.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of David Olive at Wisconsin Fertility Institute?
Do not go to Dr. Olive at all. You will end up disappointed, frustrated, and broke.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with David Olive at Wisconsin Fertility Institute?
When we first started to see Dr. Olive, he seemed very compassionate. But as time went on, our visits became shorter and shorter and he acted annoyed whenever we tried to ask questions. He also openly mocked me and called me "OCD" because I'd done research on my own and was very knowledgeable about what testing I'd already had done and what the results were. We always left appointments feeling brushed aside and confused.
Describe your experience with the nursing staff at Wisconsin Fertility Institute.
The nursing staff at WFI is far better than either of the doctors. They actually take the time to talk to patients and listen to concerns, and they are very knowledgeable.
What specific things went wrong at Wisconsin Fertility Institute?
- Failed to order appropriate test
- Failed to send your chart to another clinic
- Provided conflicting information
- Failed to convey critical information
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Wisconsin Fertility Institute.
We planned to do IUI on our 5th medicated cycle, however clinic staff failed to inform us that if I had an LH surge on my own, the IUI would be the next day, as opposed to two days after a trigger shot. I had a LH surge on a Sunday and was unable to reach anyone at the clinic to ask when the IUI should be scheduled. So when I finally reached them first thing Monday morning, they told me we would need to come in right away that day. However, this wasn't possible because my husband and I were both already at work and the clinic was over an hour away, so we couldn't get there on such short notice (we'd been planning ahead to go there on Tuesday). Had we been given this information ahead of time, we would have been able to plan ahead.
When we finally got fed up and switched to another clinic, it took several requests from the new clinic before my records were finally sent.