Today we met with the only pediatrician in Fountain Hills. Kim has been to her before as she's also Internal Medicine (so full family doctor). We had several questions to ask, largely based on a questionnaire I found in a magazine. One of the questions my boss told me to add was to ask if she was a mom. I could see why, but didn't view that as highly important. Still I added it to the list.
We had a very nice conversation with her, and while she is the only person in the practice, her dedication was amazing. I felt so comfortable with her and her knowledge, judgement, and attitude towards our input and child-rearing views. The interesting thing we both found from the conversation was that during it, we found out she had a 6 yr-old son and was expecting her second child in October. From everything we discussed, we both felt the biggest impact of knowing she was a mom. I found that so fascinating - that looking at all the questions on this paper before meeting her, the "mom" question was one of the least important factors, and yet in the midst of the entire conversation, it was the one thing she said that made us feel the most comfortable. Weird, but cool.
And for my mom, I did ask her about how she performed circumcisions. While I know nothing about the various methods currently practiced, I did gather the information in case Peanut is a boy and I could put my mother's concerns to rest. She uses something called a Gomco Clamp. What I thought was most interesting was the way she presented the procedure to us. Instead of the answer just being "I use the Gomco Clamp", the answer was something like this:
"First, I lay the child down and apply a local anasthesia. Of course, we don't have to do this if you don't agree with that. Then, I like to give the child a sugar-coated pacifier. We also don't have to do that if you don't like the idea of pacifiers. Then I put the Gomco Clamp over the head and once it is on securely, I slice the skin. I prefer the Gomco Clamp because ..." (Sorry if this is too graphic.)
I just got a kick out of the fact that the first thoughts to come to her head for answering the question of "how do you do a circumcision" were the reassurance that the baby was as comfortable as possible during the whole procedure. This was prior to finding out she was a mother, but in some ways, you could tell just by this answer.
Kim likes her a lot because she walks around with a laptop, so she passes the "geek" standard too! hahaha Actually, we were impressed as she is trying to add an email service to her practice so she can answer patients' questions via email, but she needs a secure server to do that in order to comply with privacy laws.
She is also looking for a physicians assistant right now because she knows she will need help before October when she has her baby. I liked her attitude on Physicians Assistant vs. Nurse Practitioner. Kim had asked what the difference was. We found it was the 4-yr degree before the 2 years of extra classes. A nurse practitioner becomes a nurse first. A physicians assistant is more of a biology/science degree first. She weighed the trade-offs in her opinion to us and then basically said "the degree isn't what I look for, it's the personality and whether the attitude matches my own". Being an engineer and working with others that have similar, or even more degrees than I, I totally agree. The degree doesn't make a good engineer, but attitude and dedication play a very important part.
For a mother, a doctor, a single practitioner, and pregnant to boot, she puts my energy level and dedication to shame. To add to all of that, she has a wonderful, kind personality. We are happy to say, we found ourselves a pediatrician!
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