One thought on “Dr Bronwyn Devine”

michala

• 14.07.2023

We’ve been with Dr. Devine for over a year. Having done four cycles all with devastating outcome.
It took me over a year to write this review as I wanted to be objective, try other doctors, to see if we were maybe overly sensitive due to our situation or if our experience with her and IVF Australia was really as BAD as we felt.
I picked just few points.
First Cycle introduction- none, Dr. Devine forgot!
Missed Diagnosis- Since day one I complained about my severe abdominal pain issues during my period and we repeatedly asked Dr. Devine and the nurses to do all possible tests before we start any IVF treatment. I feel robbed of the time and my chances to get pregnant since changing doctors resulted in finding out that I had a very severe form of endometriosis which can very much affect the IVF outcome.
Ignoring Requests- I have been asking repeatedly to make my partner the point of contact since I work in hospitality and I’m in direct contact with customers. Or contact me anytime after 2:30pm. This has been most of the time ignored and resulted in me getting repeatedly devastating informations in the middle of my shift hiding in a storage room, crying and not being able to go back to work.
Availability of Dr. Devine – I basically saw her just on egg collections. She was very hard to get to talk to. I was crying and pleading with a nurse after a third failed cycle to get Dr. Devine to talk to me about important things anytime during the week via phone with my partner present since I was too distressed to be capable of taking all information in and ask the right questions. Instead I got yet again an unannounced phone call during work, my partner obviously not present, finishing my shift early and very distraught .
Counselling- I was so depressed due to the devastating outcomes and mostly the mishandling of care from Dr. Devine and IVF Australia that I asked for counselling. Promising they will get back to me asap, I had to call them after three days since they forgot about me. It took them another week before I got a counselling appointment.
Impatience -we weren’t happy with one nurse and the way of her delivering information, her informations being short and very confusing and her getting impatient with us when asking questions. This could throw me into days of depression. I complained and I felt terrible about it. Dr. Devine ignored my complaint and this nurse was our point of contact even for the cycles after.I felt so guilty back then that I had complained and that maybe I was overly sensitive, but now going through this process again with someone else and how smoothly everything is going, I very much know how poorly this was handled.
Information transfer – we had no idea how challenging it could be to transfer all our treatment information to our new doctor. It took several attempts because they have been failing to send all documents.
Follow ups – After IVF 4 me being on antidepressants and devastated and again no healthy embryo I got one missed phone call from a nurse two days after while on my shift ( I stopped picking up phones at work by that time) with the promise to call me back the next day to check on me. Yet again, no one called ! It took Dr. Devine a week to check on me ( I had a missed phone call while I was working, what a surprise). I have sent her a text message and never got a reply! Just to compare, my new doctor called me a few hours after a failed cycle despite being on holiday!
Dr. Devine was always very nice to us, that was the reason we have stayed for so long and also because this was our first IVF experience, and we’ve been told that this is the standard approach. Trusting her.

But the reality was, that during this time we felt totally left alone, unheard, having trouble to get to talk to her at all and dealing with misinformation, miscommunication and impatience.

Being with someone else now, the approach between doctors and organisations couldn’t be more different. Giving me the peace I need to focus on the process and my wellbeing.