Loren Schechter, MD

4.75/5 stars. Grade A Dr. Loren Schecter and all the staff at the Weiss Hospital Center for Gender Confirmation Surgery Provided me with the humanly best possible experience and for what things did go wrong they did their best to rectify those. That expert control of what they can and correcting for what they can’t is the mark of a true master and the theme of this review. I chronicled the experience IN REAL TIME with videos attached here. Some of the files are too big and will have to be rendered smaller... OR I will combine them and provide a youtube link. Also find my twitter feed @Hontas_farmer or Instagram @twospiritone or my blog which you can find by Googling my name "Hontas Farmer". I will try to make this as self contained as I can though.

THE GOOD
I HAD NO MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS worthy of the word "complication". There were some issues with a staff member or two perhaps having a bad day. We all do. Everything within human ability to control was either controlled to keep me healthy or corrected for if it went wrong.
This isn't going to be "one magical day" where you get hit with a bolt of magic and suddenly have perfect pain free swelling free parts. (It does not happen like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utDlnzwKqG0&t=6m46s ) Leading you to thank God. BE REALISTIC… IT IS SURGERY. MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS CAN HAPPEN. They didn't to me. THERE WILL BE PAIN, it will be managed. It will take me and you a year of healing to really know where things are at.

I laid a foundation by working out and eating right for two years while wrangling with insurance companies. Dr Schecter and his team then built on that foundation and did surgery so well that I was able to get myself out of and into bed by about postop day 4. Most don’t. After working with the physical therapist from Weiss hospital I learned how to get up correctly. (I still can’t just sit on my fanny yet).

Dealing with insurance and paperwork. Some blame Schecters office for this but I happen to know the struggles they have are common to medical offices and have been for decades. Most are because by convention doctors offices use fax to send documents instead of signed PDF’s via email. Once we found a work around for the fax machine… the problem went away. Then there is the fact that insurance coding for getting SRS/GCS covered is more complicated than the code that runs your computer!

In short after two years of trying with various ACA plans and different in network primary cares to get this paid for… I bought into a comprehensive Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois plan at work. It got me 100% covered with help from Dr Schcters office and Dr Keglovitz my primary doctor at Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago.

THE BAD
Nothing bad.

THE UGLY
The only things that went wrong were three staff members and a trainee would misgendered in talking to or about me and two also did things like not make sure I had my call button/respond in a timely fashion. About day two post op... after having been on a morphine pump one of the two left me without my pain meds for 45 minutes. I had an ORGASM OF PAIN due to that.
I complained to Dr Schecter and he complained to the hospital and every administrator you can imagine came to check on and speak to me. The unit nursing administrator Martin King apologized profusely. The only "complications" I had were these incidents... more for the medial faux pas of a couple of staff who didn't make certain I had my call button and some other things. Changes were made and that didn't happen after that.

Everything within Dr Schecter and Weiss Hospitals control that could be done right was, and when it wasn't they corrected it. Furthermore, if you go there after me I am confident these issues will have been handled.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Like many I had assumed the best and almost only good surgery for this was in Thailand or Canada. WRONG.

Given the above I can only give this experience 4.75 of 5 stars. Then note that the things that went wrong are things I am sure they will strive to make better. Have confidence in them and weight really short messed up reviews on this very poorly. Believe Dr Schecter’s peer reviewed publications more. I also had the reassurance of my primary care doctor Kristin Keglovitz-Baker PA who has seen Dr Schecter MD’s results heal over time. Now I a fellow transwoman are telling you. He is a great surgeon in a great city in the United States of America. SERIOUSLY CONSIDER HIM.

Get your [RS bleep] from him before it’s the trend

Updated on 8 Aug 2018:
I am two weeks post op today and had my first dilation appointment. Dr Schecter recommends less dilation than most surgeons. Right now I am on the smaller dilators and will work up to the larger ones. He very gently showed me how to get them in along with his resident/assistant Dr Whitehead and staff members. I have sensation in the clitoral area and all around. With a little bit of a pins and needles sensation mixed in. I think this will all be ok when things settle down especially the swelling.


You have to use A LOT OF LUBE to dilate. The one place I knew of to get a LARGE quantity of lube right away was an adult book store. Larger quantities can be found on amazon too.

Updated on 15 Jun 2019:
It has been one year and I am now fully healed from surgery. With the swelling all down and everything healed up I am deep enough and wide enough to be sexual with most any man. This was a team effort. Dr Schechter did FABULOUS work on me. He guided and instructed me on after care. I followed his advice almost without fail. (One time I was forced to lift something that was over the weight limit very close to being post op. Don't do that.)

Thanks to him and my making sure to follow his advice I have healed up pretty well.

Updated on 27 Jul 2023:
I am now several years post op and have no complaints. I've taken Propper care and everything works as expected. Now with any surgeon and any patient things can go wrong. The doctor is very skilled and professional. I also made sure my body was totally prepared and I was in the best physical condition possible for me and that I took care afterwards. Issues like difficulty with insurance, or a bad experience here or there are not important when it comes to a change that will last for the rest of your life. The surgery itself is and that has worked out great.

after loosing 15 lb and being size d since 16, I was not happy with the way I look without bra. In a bra - everything was perfect. I decided to undergo breast lift and added 275 cc implants for some fullness. Recovery was fast, only crazy itching after anesthesia. I applied silicon sheets for a year, was using different scar removing lotions, didn't wear be a with wires for 6 months, slept in a bra for few months. Not sure what if anything have I done wrong, but my scars are so bad, that I am nit sure if the results are worth it.
Colloidal raised red scars are around my nipples, in a lollipop cut and some parts are whiter and flatter, some are red, raised and hard, it has been over 2 years!

I went to see another doctor who recommends to cut out the skin with scars and ditch them in a different way. But. Can't even think of going through all of I again. I opted out for cortisone shots, hope they will help. Doctor explained that because of my age and me being so healthy ( non smoker, runner, work out daily etc) my body produces a lot of collagen, like young kids ' scarring heals for years. He said with time they should get better.

Overall, I love how my breasts look, if I mask scars, its wonderful. The greats are soft to the touch and you can hardly notice implants ( under the muscle). But maybe I should've just gone for breast augmentation, with lift. Those scars are painful to touch and make you v very self conscious in certain situations. And it has been 2,5 years since surgery.....

Does not give a medically accurate or safe vaginoplasty. My depth is poor, he left too much urethral erectile tissue. I need a reduction of the mentioned tissue and want to have the depth reconsidered in a second surgery.

He didn't listen to a word I said and treated me like a was nothing but a joke. A waste of time and money. He says one thing during the phone consultation just to give you hope, then once there he no longer cares.

I have never written a review for anything in my life but I strongly urge anyone interested in top surgery to look elsewhere. Unfortunately I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent over a year of my life battling with Dr. Schecter's office. My first consultation was in March of 2018 and to this day I have never received a phone call letting me know when I might be able to schedule surgery. I finally pursued surgery with another surgeon, Dr. Wolf in Detroit, MI, and had surgery last week. Please, please, please don't suffer through an already complicated process with a provider who simply doesn't care about you. My paperwork was lost, phone calls were never returned, consultations were rescheduled and I was misgendered frequently. During the rare occasion that I could get anyone to answer the phone, I was treated with extreme disrespect by Christina, who seems to have absolutely no training whatsoever in how to handle medically / emotionally sensitive circumstances. I was made to feel like I was bothering everyone in the office. Eventually I was told that Dr. Schecter was moving his office from Weiss Memorial to Rush and nobody had any idea when the move would begin, when it would be complete, how it would impact out-of-pocket costs, or when I could be scheduled. Just thinking about the process makes me feel nauseous. Again, I'm really not one to rant online but I can't express how upset and bothered I was by the way I was treated here. They simply do not care.

Contrary to what might make sense in your head, proximity shouldn't be the overriding variance when it comes to choosing your surgeon for what amounts to one of the most important surgeries of your life. Because of my inability to understand just that, I'm able to pass along the reasoning behind it so you don't make the same mistake I did.

I was originally speaking with Dr. McGinn in Pennsylvania about my GAS procedure. Logistics played a major role in my opting not to go see her. As it turns out, logistics wasn't the issue so much as my unwillingness to research further before making my decision to stay local. It turned out to be a major error on my part!



In February of last year, I decided to see Dr. Schechter. Honestly speaking, the biggest factor behind that decision was proximity. His reviews were somewhat mixed and a lot of that had to do with his office personnel. There were several complaints in that department and you can find them by simply reading over reviews as you are now. I will do my best not to bury you in the details that built my need to post this, so I'll fast forward to where I am now.



I am no closer to surgery now than I was back on that February day of my consultation. This entire episode has been a battle of the medical side versus the insurance side and I was put squarely in the middle. I am NOT an expert in either field and it was absolute idiocy to put me in that position but it was work they didn't want to tend to. To synopsize, the doctor's office claimed they needed approval for surgical codes that didn't require approval. The insurance stated that three (3) of the codes needed approval and they were provided, along with my approval letter, to the doctor's office. So, the back and forth was just that, with Dr. Shechter's office refusing to provide the service that had been approved not once but twice through my insurance company. Their "in-house" rules were held steadfast and they refused to deal with me or my insurance company. My only option was to move on from this stalemate of a situation. I only thought they had screwed around with me until I decided to take my options elsewhere. They still had one more dagger to throw at me on my way out.



Naturally, I had to provide the proper documentation per WPATH requirements. I did so. These were original copies, signed and notarized by those medical officials who were verifying the necessity of my surgery. I brought them in with me on the day of my consult. Now, I wanted them back because of their importance and the fact that they were the originals that would be required for me to move forward. They sent me email copies of the paperwork. I inquired as to why I'm not being mailed back my originals. Simply put, they didn't have them. They informed me that "they only keep electronic copies on file and the originals were destroyed". ARE YOU SERIOUS!!?? My property, my personal files that took the better part of a year to compile were destroyed because THEY didn't need them. Who the hell are they to decide what to do with MY personal records!! Now, I have to start the process all over again because of their neglect and ignorance. Their response, "that's how we do it here".



So, in bringing this review to an end, be aware of who you pick. Research until you know you've found the right surgeon. Always ask for any personal paperwork you provide to be returned to you before you leave the office. I doubt this is standard practice (and I have since found out that it isn't) for a doctor's office. Remember that is YOUR personal property, not theirs and remind them of just that!

Finally, please understand that proximity should NEVER be the main factor that drives your decision. It was for me and I lost a year of my life, records that took just as long to accumulate, and dealt with endless aggravation from an incompetent office in the process. Plain and simple, this doctor, whether he knows what's going on with his staff or not, is not in it for your interest. If he were, he would be more willing to take the lead in some of the conversations that happened after the initial consultation was over. He didn't and never had any intention of doing so. Looking back, this may end up being a blessing in disguise. I obviously can't speak for his surgical prowess but, if it's anything like the charade that's played out leading up to it, I wouldn't trust it either! Like any other major decision in

life...BUYER BEWARE!!!

Absolutely abysmal service. His staff is incredibly rude and he is very inaccessible. His staff lied to me and made mistakes, which had very real costs for me and yet they refused to apologize or even admit they did anything wrong. Getting GRS was a major life decision for me, so I expected a little more care. I've received far more compassion, understanding, and friendly behavior from every other doctor who i consulted with about GRS.