Finding a Pediatrician It seems Vivi and I got lucky again in finding a nice pediatrician for Jaime. The Panorama Pediatric Group is still around, and we met Dr Chesley today - what a nice guy he was! An interesting little tidbit - he wqas hired to the group by none other than my old pediatrician, Dr. Nazarian, who now teaches med students at either Strong or General.I couldn't have asked for better answers to my concerns - primary of which was about vaccinations. It seems virtually all children's vaccines no longer use Thimerosal as a preservative - which just left the flu vaccine to consider, and I was reassured to hear that he is not in the habit of routinely administering the flu vaccine to all children. He also said there are flu vaccines available made without Thimerosal, and, in any case, we the parents had final say anyway. I was glad to hear that. Although doctor's surely know more than me about medicine in general, I won't yield all authority to them as I think there are times when I do know best. In any case, it's my life, my child, my family, and ultimately, my responsibility - I couldn't abdicate that if I tried. Dr. Chesley is a "DO", and not an "MD", which apparently means he grew up on the chiropractor's side of Medicalville. Interesting. He's fully certified as a pediatrician and can do everything doctor's do - legally - like perform surgery, prescribe drugs and all that. He's been mostly trained as a doctor, but has also been trained in areas such as chiropracty (sp?), acupuncture, homeopathy (er, ok, I guess), etc. He says he doesn't much use these things because he's the only doctor in the group trained in these things, and he doesn't think it would be appropriate to practice them there. That seems like a reasonable attitude. I got the impression that, to him, his training in some of these arts gives him the authority to explain to patients why they're not very useful. He mostly talked about it as an advantage in the sense that if a patient comes to him with a specific problem, he'd be likely to expand the scope of his investigation to include life situational factors, psychological factors, and other such areas. I liked that too.So, one more about-to-have-a-first-child task done - and done happily. On to the next

It seems Vivi and I got lucky again in finding a nice pediatrician for Jaime. The Panorama Pediatric Group is still around, and we met Dr Chesley today - what a nice guy he was! An interesting little tidbit - he wqas hired to the group by none other than my old pediatrician, Dr. Nazarian, who now teaches med students at either Strong or General.

I couldn't have asked for better answers to my concerns - primary of which was about vaccinations. It seems virtually all children's vaccines no longer use Thimerosal as a preservative - which just left the flu vaccine to consider, and I was reassured to hear that he is not in the habit of routinely administering the flu vaccine to all children. He also said there are flu vaccines available made without Thimerosal, and, in any case, we the parents had final say anyway. I was glad to hear that.

Although doctor's surely know more than me about medicine in general, I won't yield all authority to them as I think there are times when I do know best. In any case, it's my life, my child, my family, and ultimately, my responsibility - I couldn't abdicate that if I tried.

Dr. Chesley is a "DO", and not an "MD", which apparently means he grew up on the chiropractor's side of Medicalville. Interesting. He's fully certified as a pediatrician and can do everything doctor's do - legally - like perform surgery, prescribe drugs and all that. He's been mostly trained as a doctor, but has also been trained in areas such as chiropracty (sp?), acupuncture, homeopathy (er, ok, I guess), etc. He says he doesn't much use these things because he's the only doctor in the group trained in these things, and he doesn't think it would be appropriate to practice them there. That seems like a reasonable attitude. I got the impression that, to him, his training in some of these arts gives him the authority to explain to patients why they're not very useful. He mostly talked about it as an advantage in the sense that if a patient comes to him with a specific problem, he'd be likely to expand the scope of his investigation to include life situational factors, psychological factors, and other such areas. I liked that too.

So, one more about-to-have-a-first-child task done - and done happily. On to the next