What's up, Doc?

I've expressed my concerns about the qualifications and honesty of the medical profession, but that's not to say all doctors are bad. We have an excellent pediatrician for baby Simon, for example, but finding him was slow and painful.

It all started in the spring of ought-seven, when Simon didn't seem to be gaining much weight. We took him to a local pediatrician who was recommended to us and, after waiting 45 minutes past our appointment time, we finally got to see her. She poked and prodded Simon for a while and didn't seem concerned, then consulted her Nestlé growth chart and determined he was dying. (Nestlé makes baby formula, as you probably know, and so is naturally an unbiased judge of how much a baby should eat.)

Now, Simon was small but seemed perfectly healthy. He was active, social, and had a chubby face. He had none of the indications of malnutrition or being underfed, like lethargy or loose skin, and the doctor showed no concern whatsoever until she looked at the chart. She started talking about supplementing with rice milk, which has no nutritional value, and said she wanted to see him again in a few days to make sure he had gained. She blew off our (true) statement that breastfed babies tend to weigh less than formula fed ones, and obviously had no thoughts on alternatives to rice cereal or formula, which are essentially junk food for infants.

We walked out of the office and I glanced at my wife, expecting to see her in tears. She was eerily quiet on the walk to the car, and I finally asked her how she was doing. She just smiled and said she had tuned the doctor out completely after a while.

Obviously we wanted a second opinion. Kristin brought Simon to a lactation expert she knew and, once again, the woman thought Simon was fine until she actually put him on the scale and consulted a chart. Her concerns carried more weight, since it came from someone who strongly advocated breastfeeding, but it still annoyed us that she ignored all the physical indications of a healthy baby as soon as she looked on a chart.

In an act of desperation we decided to visit someone two hours away, who was recommended by someone in the Holistic Moms Network. This guy did the usual poking and prodding of our child, then put him on the scale and said he was fine. He assured us that if Simon was ill then it would be obvious from physical signs, and said that he was just a slow grower. Then, and this was the point when I wanted to hug him, he started rattling off recent case studies of breastfed babies and giving us facts and figures. He had been the only one we'd seen up to this point who seemed to know more than the bare minimum to do their job. He also wasn't as devoted to the "cover your ass" brand of medicine and actually gave us his personal opinions on several medical matters.

We still go to this doctor for wellness visits despite our attempts to find someone closer. I guess the moral of the story is if you don't like your doctor for any reason then keep on looking. Don't be afraid to read up on issues that concern you and ask questions during the physicals. Demand more than cookie-cutter medicine for your child.