Well Baby & New Doc

Friday morning we took Eddie to his 15 month well baby visit. Since our beloved original doctor, Mark Moeller, took a job with Kaiser in Vacaville this summer it was our first visit with Jennifer Clary. Moeller recommended that we use her after he left...and I'm so so so so glad we took his advice. She's wonderful, like a female version of him. They both have amazing bedside manner and seem genuinely invested in their patients' lives. Once I'm not in school and can choose my own doctor, I will switch to her for my own care, too. (She's in family medicine, not pediatrics...although if she were a pediatrician I'd try to find a way to see her anyway! I'd be like Ross in Friends...hahahaha.)

At the 12 month appointment we had to see a 3rd year resident, who we did not like. She wasn't rude or unprofessional but she didn't seem very connected to us at all. She asked only the following:

• Do you have any concerns you want to talk about today?

Mind you, this was the first time we'd even met her! So she knew nothing about us other than Eddie's stats from his file. She asked no questions that I would expect a new doctor to do (is he breastfeeding? sleeping through the night? learning new words? walking? how are you holding up with the responsibilities as a parent?).

But the worst offense: she didn't even comment on how cute Eddie was. HELLO! How can I trust someone's judgment if they don't see the most obvious trait?!

*insert flabbergasted face here*

That might seem silly, but it is really important to us. Even if she had to lie about it, as a child's doctor she should know what the normal protocol is. The minimum requirement is to at least pretend to care about your patients....jeez. My good friend, Kristin, is a family practice doctor and she rolled her eyes at me when I told her this...but even she admitted needing to pretend to care.

Some people might argue that this is a downfall of having a family practice doctor for your child instead of a pediatrician. I disagree--it is all about finding the right person for your medical needs and your personality. We like the idea of having a doctor to treat our whole family (and to help us create our family...ideally we'll have her deliver our future babies, too).

And the childhood "fad" disorders really bug me (which I think are partly related to pediatrics). Just like diets there's always some phenomenon that makes national news. It used to be ADD/ADHD and Ritalin use--overnight everyone's child seemed to get diagnosed. Then it was that mercury was causing autism (not true...look it up). Now it is autism spectrum disorder. You hear crazy statistics like, "it is estimated that 50% of American children actually have autism but haven't been properly diagnosed" or even worse, "diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder have increased 90% since [insert year here]." Okay people, these are fads. The reason there's been an increase is because parents and doctors are looking for something to diagnose. Tommy Jr. is having trouble reading at school? Blame it on some loosely defined disorder so you don't have to feel guilty making your son work harder than his classmates to master reading. My point is: I'm hoping that we'll avoid some of this nonsense by having a generalist doctor and not a specialist who might feel like they aren't doing their job without diagnosing my children with latest problem. That being said, I think everyone needs to be an advocate for their health and if something seems wrong but your doctor brushes it off, you should take it upon yourself to get a second opinion (without being pyschosomatic or hypochondriac about it).

*Cue spotlight as I step off my soapbox*

Anyway, Eddie's perfect. (Duh!) He is 32" tall and 23.75 pounds (40% percentile for weight-for-length). Get me off this cold scale and STOP laughing at me!

Poor babe had to get shots this time, including MMR and flu. The nurse warned us that he'll likely have pain for up to a few days from the MMR...but our little trooper was just fine.