Mission Accomplished!

Pediatrician found! I had the most awesome new patient consultation today! I thought it was pretty silly originally to choose a pediatrician because he is the son of the pediatrician I saw when I was little, but it certainly has worked out. He made it a point of explaining that his plan was to take what his father started and continue that as best he can. His father had a very family-focused practice, and the son does as well. He and his wife run the practice and while there are two of them, they are not working on having twice as many patients as his father had but rather about 1 to 1.2 times as many (his words). They want more quality time with their patients, not quantity of patients. Other great points about his practice:

• Office hours Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri 9AM-5PM and Wed and Sat mornings.


• They trade on call duties with a few other doctors in the area. So whenever I call, even on off hours, I will speak to a pediatrician--not a nurse or physicians assistant.


• If I call on off hours and one of the other doctors is on call, they get a list the next day of which of their patients made an off hours call and they follow up to make sure everything is okay.


• They fully support and recommend breastfeeding. They're also realistic and understand that if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.


• They want to see the baby more often in the beginning than the "guidelines" recommend. They want to get to know the child and offer support, especially to new parents. Again, quality time...they don't rush you out the door for these visits either but go through everything to make sure everything is addressed.


• If my child is ill or something happens, they can get me in right away during office hours-he said usually within 10 minutes. That's part of the reason why even though there are 2 doctors there, they will only carry the patient load of (pretty much) one doctor. So there's backup to take over if a sick call comes in or a parent needs to talk about some issues during a regularly scheduled appointment.

He kept saying how much he enjoys working with children and how thankful he is to be able to do so. I got a great vibe from him and I really love his philosophy. So, this was an easy one. One interview and I've found our baby's doctor! Woohoo!!