We graduate wonderful physicians in this country and in terms of being competent or skilled or knowing how to take care of children, if they’re family practice or pediatrics, they do. They know how to take care of kids. So, then the question is: How, the rapport between the family and the physician. Now, most people get their referrals -- who do I go to, where do I go -- by talking to other people. Actually that’s probably a good way of doing it: Talk to people at work, talk to people around you. You can do some background research once you get a few names, certainly, and see what hospitals they’re affiliated, where are their offices. Things I would look for in a primary care doctor: are they close by, because, honestly, no matter how good they are, you don’t want to be driving an hour and half to see the doc. Not just when is the next available appointment, but you can somehow ask a question like, “Hey, how many appointments do you have open in a day for same day appointments?”, because a lot of people have one. But two or three or five openings in a day seems reasonable at the beginning of the day to fill in those acute things. How quickly can a person get seen for a sudden illness? If they are booking two weeks out, that’s a problem, in my opinion and they should be able to see you that day or the next day, especially if they are seeing kids. Are weekend hours important to you? And that’s just a very simple question. Once you are there, trust your gut. This sounds funny, but, would you loan a book to this person. If you say to yourself, “No, I wouldn’t,” then you probably don’t want to see them as a doc. So really trust your gut and it’s okay to go in and see somebody once and say, you know, we’re going to go check out somebody else. That’s okay. It’s really hard to get out a physician-patient relationship after you’ve been there for five years and you’re managing a difficult disease. So, those are some simple things: Availability, and just what your gut feeling off how they communicate with you.
