Before your first scheduled appointment:
- Try to avoid picking a doctor at random from your health plan’s list or out of the phone book!
- Most people who found their physicians through someone they trusted – a friend, a family member or another doctor – had the most favorable, long-lasting experiences.
- In our “Medical Home,” we want to get to know the families and support their life transitions. In a bygone time, it was common knowledge that pediatrics was a very personal branch of medicine – a place for physicians and families to enjoy a special relationship. Despite the rise in hi-tech medicine, we still adhere to that time-honored tradition of personal care and caring for all of “our kids!”
- And that’s exactly how it should be. That’s the challenge – to maintain quality medicine and patient satisfaction. Here at Doctors’ Pediatric, we are up to doing just that and doing it first-class!
- All the pediatricians at Doctors’ Pediatric are Board Certified. (Remember, a Board Certified physician requires additional years of advanced training in that specialty and the successful passing of rigorous tests.)
Next, make an appointment with that doctor:
- Ideally, a personal interview with both parents and the pediatrician should take place in his or her office (this affords you the opportunity to see, first-hand, the locale and meet our staff). Definitely do this before your baby arrives. The result: you will be more comfortable and pleasantly aware that the doctor you choose will be the one giving your newborn that very first exam and who will be the one counseling and answering all your questions initially and for years-to-come.
- To bring a child into the world is to make a promise to oneself and to the child. To assume the responsibility for the medical care of that child is to see that the promise is kept. [As pediatricians we are blessed daily with a special calling … to care for and care about those patients entrusted to us from before their birth up until their college graduation (and/or marriage)…. We consider our job to go way beyond listening to heart and lung sounds and treating asthma or some other childhood ailment. We are a vital link for your family. Parents (and grandparents) look to us for guidance in their parenting decisions. We, in turn, look past the individual child to the family at large – it is well-known that the family environment is the major determinate of a child’s well being.]
Do your homework carefully:
- The Internet has given searchers almost limitless sources of information about medical conditions. But patients often show up poorly informed because of some bad information found online. Take care to assess the site’s validity before relying on what it is saying. (The London Royal Medicine Society’s motto: “Nullis In Verba” [Take nobody’s word for it] is a good reminder.)
- Two free sites appear more trustworthy:
MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com)
National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov)
Both rated excellent for reliability and quality of information in a review by Consumer Reports WebWatch, a project of Consumer Union and the Health Improvement Institute.
(For more help with evaluating health web sites, go to www.healthratings.org.) - But please don’t bring reams of printouts to your appointment with us. We want to spend our precious time together talking with you and looking at you and your youngster and not gazing down at pages of copy or a computer screen.
Do prepare an agenda:
- According to national physician surveys and direct studies of patient visits, the average patient gets 10 to 20 minutes with the doctor.
- Deciding ahead of time those things you most need to discuss with us can make the most of this limited time.
- Bring a written list of questions and concerns for these visits with the doctor.
- Stress the two or three issues you most want to talk about first. (If necessary, we will make additional arrangements to ensure that your needs are amply covered.)
All interfaces are always strictly confidential. (Should you desire to alert us to personal and/or family sensitive issues, and time permits, simply call us ahead so we may arrange a convenient moment to speak to each other regarding just such matters.)
Doctors’ Pediatric’s goal is to make our relationship meaningful and long-lasting. All mothers and fathers want to be “good” parents and they want to have happy, healthy, successful children. So do we – choose us and together perhaps a more meaningful life for all participants, but especially for your child, may evolve. If you would like to join us in this new exciting dialogue, please call our office(s).