Fitzgerald Dennis C

Had the vestibular testing. Dr. Fitzgerald was not as busy the follow up apptmt. The first time the waiting room was so packed I had to stand — because everyone wants an apptmt with him. I had the follow up on the holidays & was grateful to find a normal office flow with only 3 or 4 people in the waiting room. He was very jovial & joking on the follow up, showed me a chart that demonstrates why I’m having balance issues after the car accident & brain injury. He’s a great doc from my experience. Expect an education however — because he wants you to understand what he’s saying :) This is a seasoned doc who — well — «KNOWS HIS STUFF»!

Dr. Fitzgerald changed my life. I blew out my eardrum due to a congenital defect which caused sudden hearing loss then caused a perilymphatic fistula (PLF). I had horrific vertigo and nausea as a result. I was unable to work or drive due to the symptoms. Given that a PFL is so small it cannot be seen by the human eye, Dr. Fitzgerald diagnosed me through office visits and symptoms. He recommended surgery to patch the fistula and I was symptom free within a few weeks after surgery. Dr. Fitzgerald gave me my life back. I highly recommend him!

After having a second incident of BPPV, I decided to see Dr. Fitzgerald. He was recommended to me from a friend who had the same diagnosis. After one visit, she has not had any more episodes.
Dr. Fitzgerald was able to explain to me what was happening in my ear, and he did the epley maneuver. I left the office feeling reassured about my problem, and was told that I do not need to return for any follow up.
I was impressed with Dr. Fitzgerald’s knowledge, and was even more impressed that he saw me the exact time my appointment was scheduled.
I would highly recommend Dr. Fitzgerald.

It is not an exaggeration to say that I am truly thankful for Dr Fitzgerald every day! If not for Dr Fitzgerald’s skill I may have lost my employment due to frequent absences and I certainly would have spent much of my time in significant discomfort from the spinning and nausea of vertigo/​BPPV and dizziness of Meniere’s.
Dr Fitzgerald has treated me for more than 10 years to maintain my balance and well being. The problems with my ears have changed from time to time. He has been able to diagnose at each stage and carries out the appropriate treatment. He really knows his craft!
Given the distance to his office, I first tried well known practices closer to my home. One doctor said that if I was not willing to have surgery there was nothing he could do for me! Another passed me to an audiologist for an Epley’s maneuver that was ineffective — three times. In both cases, I had to wait for an appointment for weeks when I was experiencing a full blown vertigo attack. I have been to two area emergency rooms where the so called treatment was to administer drugs that knocked me out and when I woke up the problem was still there. What a contrast from Dr Fitzgerald’s practice!
I was so grateful to find Dr Fitzgerald! He did not require me to have surgery as a prerequisite. He sees me as much and as often as I need him. And he knows exactly what to do. He is the only doctor that has been able to treat my issues so that I can return to work the same day and carry on with minimal disruption in my life.
His staff is so caring and attentive. They clearly understand the debilitating effects of BPPV and Meniere’s and do everything possible to help with scheduling and appointments. Dr Fitzgerald’s front office is a big plus! I haven’t experienced this level of assistance with any other doctor’s office.
I have recommended Dr Fitzgerald to a number of friends and colleagues. To a person, they have had similar experiences with the doctor and his staff, and all have had positive results. Again, I am soooooo thankful for his expertise.

Dr. Dennis Fitzgerald may have saved my life, and definitely enabled me to maintain my active and mobile lifestyle. I was having serious, totally unexpected vertigo attacks while driving, often at high speeds, posing a real danger to me and other drivers and pedestrians. I seriously thought I might have to give up ever driving again, which would have been a real psychological catastrophe for someone with a vigorous lifestyle like myself.
Before beginning treatment of my dangerous vertigo, Dr. Fitzgerald was brutally honest in warning me that the only real solution he could see might have a side effect entailing some permanent loss of my sense of balance. I decided this was an acceptable trade-​off. Now, eight months after my treatment, my vertigo attacks have disappeared and my loss of balance has been minimal, no way affecting normal functioning.
Dr. Fitzgerald is not a slick «smiley face» type of guy, but I’ve found him to be totally professional, a highly intelligent and blunt straight-​shooter who gets right to the point.

10 stars would be even better! Dr. Dennis Fitzgerald has been my doctor for at least 15 years. He’s caring knowledgeable and the only one who has ever helped me with my ear problems. Before finding him I met with three other doctors none of whom could solve any of my problems. He is excellent with vertigo and benign positional vertigo problems also. I have recommended him to many of my friends, clients, etc.
All of them have been totally enthusiastic about his wonderful care. I called his office on Friday, March 27 with a problem and his office was able to contact him even though he was in surgery. He called me back the same day with all the information and medications needed. I sincerely hope that Dr. Fitzgerald never retires!

Absolutely awful. I was not misdiagnosed. However, I WAS NOT EVEN DIAGNOSED. Dr. Fitzgerald ordered a series of tests, for a persistent ear ringing I have had for 8 months. All of my tests have come back clean, EXCEPT for the MRI, which I have contacted his office four times in the last three weeks for results for. Every time, some receptionist says she’ll get my message to the doctor, but I get nothing. Really? You cannot take 3 minutes to call me and 1. Either say, the test came back fine or 2. Call me into your office and ask me to schedule a follow up. I could have something seriously wrong and this doctor and his office give absolutely ZERO for the concern of my health. I’m absolutely disgusted and disappointed. I will be sure to take this information back to my primary care who recommended his «good friend» in the first place. Absolutely disgusted.

Dr. Fitzgerald tends to diagnose a great majority of his patients (if not all of them) with PLF — perilymphatic fistula. PLFs are extremely uncommon, and yet somehow every person who comes into his office with the slightest irregularity gets slapped with that diagnosis. Surprise, surprise — many of his tests are not covered by insurance. Surprise, surprise — PLFs require surgery. It’s a scam.
There were two glaring red flags with Dr. Fitzgerald:
First, he pushed hard for the surgery, going so far as to say that I was «crazy» if I were to opt against it. I didn’t have the surgery, however, because none of the tests indicated it. Among the battery of inner ear tests I had, most were negative, one showed that there was a problem (but it wasn’t conclusive at all about what the cause was and in no way related to a PLF), and the one test that would have suggested — but not conclusively identified — a PLF was also negative. Still, Dr. Fitzgerald pushed hard for the surgery. That seemed odd to me.
Second, when I later got a copy of my medical reports from Dr. Fitzgerald to give to another doctor there was NO MENTION of a possible PLF or Dr. Fitzgerald’s strong insistence that I have surgery. NO MENTION of even a possibility of a PLF. There was NO MENTION that we even discussed a PLF. If that’s the case, how would I even know about perilymphatic fistulas? I am not a doctor, and when I brought up PLFs to my doctor friends, they, too, had never heard of them.
In the event that someone is confused as to why a doctor would not put his recommendation and his diagnosis in his notes, it’s because Dr. Fitzgerald was covering his ass. Should he ever be reviewed by the Medical Board (which he wont, as the Medical Board in DC is inept), it would be damning if a disproportionate number of patients were diagnosed with the same problem and were recommended to have the same surgery. So, by not referring to his insistent recommendation that I have surgery and not mentioning that we even discussed the surgery or that diagnosis, he evades detection should he ever be reviewed. There is a word for that: UNETHICAL. Yes, Dr. Fitzgerald is an unethical doctor. Do not go to him. If anyone goes to him and he diagnoses that individual with a PLF, it should come as no surprise. Had Dr. Fitzgerald at least written that PLF was a possibility or that surgery was an option, I would merely think Dr. Fitzgerald was a bad doctor. But he’s worse: Dr. Fitzgerald is not only bad, he’s also unethically cutting into people, recommending them for surgeries that they probably don’t need, and when they show any semblance — such as I did — about not being on board with his recommendation, he does not document his «professional» medical opinion. In fact, after pounding into me that surgery was my only viable option, he merely wrote in his notes that I was a candidate for «vestibular rehabilitation» — a much more conversative treatment approach, something that should have been suggested before surgery was even mentioned, and something we had never, ever discussed.
Not surprisingly, every single patient in the waiting room had been diagnosed with a PLF. Unless people are traveling to Dr. Fitzgerald from the world over, that in itself is highly suspicious. Unless PLF is the most underdiagnosed medical problem in the otolaryngological world — it isn’t — there shouldn’t be dozens of people getting this unusual surgery at any given time.
As a bookend to my experience — which punctuated my already formed opinion even further — one of the movers who loaded my belongings when I moved out of town happened to mention out-​of-​the-​blue about some vertigo issue he had. With no prompting from me, he mentioned that he had been to Dr. Fitzgerald at Washington Hospital, who, like me, had diagnosed him with a perilymphatic fistula. Imagine that??? What are the odds? Fortunately, he, too, did not opt for the surgery.
Dennis Fitzgerald is an unethical and dishonest doctor. Don’t go to him. And if you do, don’t be surprised if you’re diagnosed with a PLF.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.