Questions to Ask in a Pediatrician Interview

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What are some good questions to ask when interviewing a potential pediatrician for my newborn?”

Your best bet for finding a pediatrician or family-practice doctor for your baby is to ask parents of toddlers and preschoolers who they take their kids to and what they think of their doctor. Most parents have a whole lot to say on the subject, and you’ll get a lot more in-depth info than you would on your insurance company’s web site or leafing through some “best doctors” issue of a local magazine. Neighborhood online bulletin boards or Facebook groups are good places to ask, too.

When you have a few names, first call the offices and ask the staff the practical stuff:

  • Is the doctor accepting new patients?
  • Do they take your insurance?
  • Is the office reasonably close to your house?
  • Does you or anyone in the practice have privileges at the hospital where you plan to deliver? (This might become important if your baby experiences any kind of complications during delivery or after, or the hospital wants to perform invasive tests on the baby after delivery and you want a second opinion.)
  • If you’re planning to go back to work, is it possible to make appointments after-hours or on weekends for routine visits?

If it turns out a doctor who’s a good fit on a practical level, schedule a consultation in person. There are lots of questions you can ask, from the practical to the “how would you approach this?” Open-ended questions instead of yes-or-no should give you a sense of your doctor’s style, if he or she is a “do what you feel” or  “do it this way”type.

  • How often will the baby need to see a doctor throughout the first year?
  • What sort of routine checkups, vaccines and screening tests do you recommend and when?
  • What kind of screenings do you do for autism and developmental delays?
  • At what point do you want parents to call you after the baby is born? Can/should you call the doctor if baby has health issues in the hospital, like if baby has a birth defect, isn’t wetting enough diapers or spikes a fever in the hospital, or will the hospital staff pediatricians be the ones to take care of issues?
  • Are there any routine hospital procedures, such as screening tests or routine antibiotics for newborns that you do or don’t recommend? Do you recommend postponing baby’s after-delivery bath? Do you recommend circumcision or cord blood banking in the hospital?
  • After baby is home from the hospital, what symptoms of illness should parents call you about? (A fever over what temperature? Vomiting for how long? Crying inconsolably for how long?)
  • Who will be on call on evenings and weekends for baby’s first few months?
  • Do you have any opinions on crib sleeping, using a bassinet or co-sleeper, or versus co-sleeping in a family bed? feeding and sleeping schedules for newborns? introducing baby to pets? what kind of car seat to buy?
  • How many technicians, nurses, doctors and receptionists work in the practice? Lots of doctors in the practice should mean it’ll be easier to get an appointment and have calls returned after hours, the tradeoff is that you don’t get to know the doctors and staff in the practice as well as you might with a smaller office.

You might not have enough time in a 30-45 minute consultation to have your every question answered, but you should be able to get an idea of what your relationship might be like with this doctor, and get some good practical information too.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed about having a baby, you might want someone who will tell you in no uncertain terms exactly when and how to do this, that and the other thing. On the other hand, if you’ve done a lot of research and/or an experienced parent, you might prefer dealing with someone who is more a partner than an authority figure.  If the first doctor you consult with seems like not a good fit- too harried, too flaky, too bossy , the office staff is rude, the wait is long, whatever- move on. You might see this person a hundred times and changing doctors can be a pain, so best to start out with the right person.

Good luck!

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