September 23, 2009

I am writing this letter in support of Dr. Aviva Sinvany-Nubel, Ph.D. She was my therapist for almost two years and I came to truly admire her. Her compassion and dedication for her patients and the transgender community is unlimited. With this letter, I hope to show what makes her stand out among her peers.

The first thing that comes to mind was the way she conducted her sessions. Normally a patient has one hour with their therapist. Once the time limit is reached, the therapist will stop the session. Dr. Nubel never did that! Many of her patients, myself included, had many sessions that spanned hours. She would not let you leave until she was convinced you were OK. This may have thrown her schedule off, but we all knew that whoever was in with her needed that extra time. I would note that she never charged me extra for those extended sessions.

My second thought would be her work with the medical community. She setup a network of doctors, teaching them and their staff on how to interact with her patients. This was done to ensure we would be treated well and receive proper medical attention. Dr. Nubel also worked closely with our primary care physicians concerning the hormone replacement therapy. This was necessary, since many doctors don’t understand the process and have never had transgendered patients.

Dr. Nubel also found a second therapist too work with her patients. This is part of the process to receive the approval for gender reassignment. Both therapists must agree that the procedure is correct for the patient or the gender reassignment will not take place. Most therapists don’t understand and or know what to do with us, so this was essential.

The third item would be her assisting with the legal name change, gender change on the driver’s license and birth certificate as well as changing information with Social Security. She also had a list complied to help with changing all of the everyday items we would normally take for granted and possibly forget.

Dr. Nubel also opened her home to her patients. She and her family treated us as family. She had parties where surgeons gave presentations along with free consultations, saving us the cost and time of traveling across the U.S. or too Canada. This also afforded her patients an opportunity to network. There was a support group meeting held at her home and she had special events where people came to talk about makeup and hair which is something most of us needed to learn.

Dr. Nubel also went with me to Canada for my gender reassignment surgery at her own expense knowing that I had no one to go with me for support. She did this for many of her patients.

I went to Montreal again for a third procedure. My drive home took me through Dr. Nubel’s town and I was lucky it did. I must have pulled a stitch and or torn something, for I was bleeding badly when I reached her home. She immediately stopped her session to care for me. She called Canada and worked with Dr. Menard on getting the bleeding under control. I was no longer her patient when this happened.

Although I was no longer a patient, she always had someone contact me whenever there was an event at her home that would be of help. She is a caring, dedicated doctor and I consider myself fortunate to have found her.

Michelle L Schmidt