When you’re a parent of a baby, toddler, or young child, your pediatrician is without a doubt one of the most important persons in your life and that of your child. He or she is the one you rely on to make things better when your child falls ill, which indeed is bound to happen sooner or later.
Once a partnership has been established between your pediatrician and you, you might need to make an effort to maintain that relationship to be a positive and productive one. Firstly, every pediatrician’s office has certain rules and policies. Do observe and respect them no matter how ‘familiar’ you already are at the premise. If the pediatrician’s office has an information sheet, keep it and refer to it often. Parents who expect special treatment or who think they are somehow above the rules, will ultimately turn off a pediatrician and hence sabotage a good doctor-patient relationship.
Listen (as well as ask!)
Be willing to give what the doctor says a chance. After all, it is his/her profession to see to your child’s health. If your doctor doesn’t feel that medication will eliminate the problem or that the illness must simply run its course, why argue? Do ask questions though, especially if you are not clear on any matters. Only if the doctor’s suggestions do not work should you call him again for him to investigate further or for another approach?
Is it really an emergency?
Evaluate the situation carefully but with a mature mind. If you can wait until morning, do so before calling your doctor. Leave the midnight and weekend calls for emergencies only. This might be a hard concept for young or first-time parents, to whom anything slightly out of the ordinary in their children may seem like a devastating emergency.
Improving Communication
Don’t expect the pediatrician to read your mind. It will save you a lot of unnecessary worries if you let the doctor know your concerns. Then only, can he or she reassure you or clarify the matter with you, especially if you have concerns which the doctor does not mention during your child’s visit. For example, if you’re worried your child may have asthma, or that his rash is eczema, do voice it out to him or her so that they may confirm your theory or put it to rest for you. If you let your doctor know what you are worried about, then he can spend extra time explaining why you shouldn’t be worrying about it.
Point to consider
Your baby’s appointment is for that one person only and your doctor has allocated time to see that child for that time. Don’t use your baby’s appointment as an opportunity for all of your other children to be seen by the doctor. This, opportunist approach is unfair to your doctor and most pediatricians agree that this thoughtless and annoying one-stop approach only takes too much of their time (affecting other scheduled appointments). If others in your family need to be seen by the doctor, schedule appropriate appointments for each.
This is your time, so ask your questions
It is your right to ask questions about your kid’s health, so do not hesitate. If you do it right, you can make the most of the short amount of time during your kid’s appointment. If you aren’t given a handout with the information written down by your doctor, ask for one, or take your notes. And ask questions about things you don’t understand. If you don’t ask any questions, don’t blame your doctor if he were to assume that you understand everything he has said to you.
Try writing down your questions before you go to your doctor’s office so you will not leave out anything. Most parents forget their routine questions during the visit. Having a list of questions or topics that you want to discuss at your appointment will make it more likely that everything is covered and you have no reason to wonder about anything.
Scheduling Appointments
Now and then, you may feel you need more time to discuss your child’s problem, so ask if you can schedule an appointment that is longer than your normal visit to the doctor’s office. Alternatively, you can ask if your pediatrician can call you back at the end of the day to answer more questions.
Scheduling an appointment during an off-peak time of year may also increase your chances of getting more time with your doctor. Pediatricians are known to be up to their elbows with little patients during cold and flu seasons, rainy season, and also when there are outbreaks like the hand, foot, and mouth disease, or rotavirus. They are generally less busy in between these times and times when fewer sicknesses are circulating within the community. Scheduling an appointment during less busy times can help you get more time with the doctor for thorough physical check-ups and general questions and queries about your child’s well-being.
If your child has more than one health issue, try to schedule specific appointments to talk about the different problems, putting the more severe one first. If you are at a sick visit for a sore throat or an ear infection, then your pediatrician will likely not have a lot of extra time to also talk about dandruff or a scar, especially if there are many more patients in the waiting room. If you schedule a separate appointment, then you will likely have more time to talk about it.
Avoid Medical Lingo
Many parents love using medical terminology, but end up saying the wrong things. For example, if you call your doctor’s office and say that your child is lethargic, you are likely to be instructed to bring your child in right away. In proper medical terms, lethargic refers to a situation where a person is not able to wake up. That is most certainly an emergency. Many pediatricians had situations where their ‘lethargic’ patients were running around the office because their parents were convinced they looked tired and were not themselves.
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