I wrote to Dr. Marcy Schultenover, the eye doctor at Pearle Vision who was
reported to have refused to see a breastfeeding mother in her office.  She
called me this morning, upset that only one side of the story had been
reported.  I offered to share her press release with all of you and she
readily agreed. (Long)
Re: Marcy Schultenover
I wish to respond to various incomplete, misleading and false allegations
made against me by a disgruntled patient concerning an incident which
occurred at my place of business at Fox Run Mall on Oct. 19, 1997.  although
one would ordinarily not think that the media would be the proper forum to
raise such allegations, it appears that this individual has a particular
agenda which she believes would be best served through publicity.  although I
had hoped to be able to put up with accusations in silence, the persistence
of this individual and her supporters in repeating the accusations in the
media have left me with no choice but to set the record straight.
For the reasons that follow, it should be apparent that breastfeeding is not
the issue, regardless of how much certain individuals may desire to make it
such.  However, I should point out that I not onam a believer in
breastfeeding but plan on doing so with my own babies.  The issue is what
behavios should be expected from a patient during a medical examination.
An eye exam requires that the patient, and particularly the patient's eyes,
remain perfectly still during certain periods of the exam and that the doctor
be able to bring the examination equipment into very close proximity to the
patient. Had this particular patient placed her baby in its stroller during
the examination, as I had asked, none of this should have been a problem.
 However, she did not want to use the stroller and instead in turn left a
very active and very vocal baby free to crawl around on the floor or placed
it in her lap (part of the time to nurse it).  While the baby was on the
floor, the patient was constantly moving her eyes or head to watch the baby
and even was, from time to time, actually got up from the examination chair
to attend to it.  with the baby in her lap, there was inadequate room to
bring the examination equipment into position.
All of this unnecessarily prolonged the exam to the point where I told her
that she would have to reschedule the appointment if she could not remain
still and permit proper equipment positioning.  By that time, the delays
caused by her were seriously inconveniencing other patients who had been
backed up by the fact that she had shown up for her appointment and hour
early but nonetheless asked to be seen out of ooder because it would be
"inconvenient" for her to come back.
After complaining about this request, she finally placed the baby in its
stroller and the exam was quickly completed without further problems.  She
received her eyeglass prescription and free trial contact lenses, and left
without further incident.
I believe that a reasonable person would agree that it is unreasonable , if
not dangerous, to expect a doctor to conduct a medical examination in the
face of distractions such as this, when a little common courtest on the
patient's part would have allowed the exam to proceed more effectively.
I welcome any questions you might have and am willing to sit down with you at
a convenient time to discuss this further."
To write to Dr. Schultenover: Pearle Vision Center, Fox Run Mall, 50 Fox Run
Road, Newington, NH 03801