Choosing the Right Doctor for Your Child
by guest columnist Patrick Malone
Many of us have been guilty of choosing a doctor for ourselves with about as much care as we would pick a restaurant: We ask a friend, check the ads, try random luck. Our children’s health care deserves more attention, but how do we start in finding the best doctor?
The good news is that in the Internet age, there are plenty of ways to check out doctors. The bad news is the information can be contradictory, confusing and overwhelming. So here are some tips to get started.
The first thing is to find a top primary care doctor for routine ailments and preventive care. As a patient advocate, I urge parents to look carefully at two signposts: Credentials and Communications.
Credentials: At a minimum, the doctor should be board-certified in either pediatrics or family medicine. It’s fine if the doctor has other certifications besides these two, but one of these is the minimum bedrock. Board-certification means the doctor has gone through an approved training program and has passed a rigorous test lasting at least one day, plus he or she has agreed to maintain current in medical information by taking periodic recertifying tests. You can check any doctor’s credentials at the American Board of Medical Specialties, www.abms.org, which governs twenty-four major medical disciplines plus more than one hundred sub-specialties.
Warning: there are other impressive-sounding “boards” out there that hand out certificates to doctors for little more than paying dues or perhaps attending a weekend lecture course. You need to make sure your doctor is certified by one of the official ABMS boards.
Communications: A doctor’s ability to carefully listen to the parent and then get across his or her action plan for treatment is a core skill. Diagnosis can often be made from the patient’s history, even before any examination or tests. So if you leave the doctor’s office feeling rushed or condescended to, and if that’s a consistent problem, you may want to look for another doctor.
Patrick Malone is an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who represents families when a loved one has been a victim of a preventable medical injury. His new book is The Life You Save: Nine Steps to Finding the Best Medical Care -- and Avoiding the Worst (Da Capo Lifelong 2009). You can read the first chapter, learn about some of the Internet’s best resources for health care, and see reviews and interviews about the book at http://lifeyousave.com.
Don Keenan, the founder of Keenan’s Kids Foundation, is the author of the child safety book 365 Ways to Keep Kids Safe, which is available at www.balloonpress.com and www.amazon.com.
All proceeds benefit the Keenan’s Kids Foundation, www.keenanskidsfoundation.com or www.myspace.com/365waystokeepkidssafe.com.