Ceallsach Crouch
1/5
Dr. Farmer came very highly recommended to my partner, has great reviews online, and her office staff were all very, very friendly. We were very positive we would have a good experience, even if we did not receive the news we wanted.
To back up a bit, my partner is transgender. We were referred to Dr. Farmer to discuss the possibility of top surgery for his transition. She had all the paper work and was very well aware of what our meeting was going to be about – a simple consultation and information about a bilateral mastectomy for transitioning purposes.
She came into the office without any files or paperwork, sat down and began to speak. First, I would like to emphasize that about 90% of our conversation was about insurance and about 10% was actual medical advice / consultation. She wanted to know if my partner had seen a specialist for gender therapy (basically wondering if he had a “team”). In so many words, he explained to her that no, he did not, because we had recently moved to the area, but he had been on HRT for 8 months and had a good experience with his doctor up in ATL plus a positive and reinforcing experience with his new physician here in Macon (I won’t mention her here, but she was very understanding and positive about HRT and the transition process and wanted to help out as much as possible).
For the rest of the visit, Dr. Farmer emphasized to us that insurance would probably not cover this, which we fully understand. We were not there to hear what we had already heard from so many doctors / insurance companies / friends, but to get a consultation and advice about a medical procedure. We wanted to know where to start, what to look for, what prepare for medically so we could start thinking about it (weight loss, mammograms, etc.) Every time we would try to steer the conversation back to medical issues, she would again cite insurance problems. She said to us that people with medical issues with (real) pain didn’t get this surgery covered so she doubted that we could, citing fibromyalgia pain in her previous patients.
To me, that emphasizes that she did not think that what we came to her for was “real” or valid. Gender dysphoria is real. Gender dysphoria is painful.
Many times she emphasized that she didn’t concern herself with / know a lot about the insurance “side of things,” but if that was the case, we would have really appreciated an actual consultation where we could gather more information about the medical procedure itself and if she was willing to do it for us.
She did do a brief 30 second examination on my partner to examine a harmless calcium deposit, but that was the extent of any medical talk besides the mention of a mammogram probably being necessary (This was in the context of another doctor / team performing this surgery, not herself. She was very emphatic about that.) Additionally, my partner did express his concerns about pain / trouble breathing / binding problems that have centered around his chest. She did not even ask questions or touch that subject at all.
I got the impression that the answer was “No, I cant help you / won’t help you / won’t perform surgery now or in the future” from the word go, but I would have REALLY appreciated her honesty on the subject rather than paying $125 out of pocket for her to emphasize insurance rather than a medical consultation.
In the end, she said she would call an endocrinologist (mentioned by my partner) in the area to see if he had any advice or knew what to do and then left the room. We felt helpless and unheard. Who was to say we couldn’t get the money? Or weren’t willing to raise it and work hard for this goal? I was very disappointed in her and I would emphasize to anyone looking for this type of procedure for gender transition to look elsewhere for a surgeon to help. I'm not mad - I'm tired. I'm disappointed. We wanted help but received none. I genuinely hope that one day she understands the impact actions and words like that have.
