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And Coronavirus also......geez. 🤦♀️
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Well, they want to have lives as well you know.
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Our pediatrician is one of many in a large system. If something is wrong, and not an emergency, we send a message to him but it’s triaged to someone else if he’s not able to answer within 24 hours.
If it’s an actual emergency, and life is at risk, I’m calling 911 or rushing to the hospital. I’m not going to call a single point of contact who is not paid on retainer by me to wait for my call.
Most pediatricians have a triage number where you can reach an on-call nurse or they rotate on-call with other Drs in their practice.
This. And if yours doesn’t have a 24hr line you might want to find one who does. Young kids tend to develop things in the middle of the night that make you want to ask a question and the last thing you want is to have to go to the ER because you can’t call one.
Suggest you just call the doctor office, they usually have an answering service and can get back to you fairly quickly. Otherwise, there’s urgent care - you just have to make sure they’ve got a pediatrician on site before you go.
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Agree with D1. Our doctor has a web service where we can ask questions and get replies right away from someone in the practice. It’s very convenient. I think we can even do a video call to show them the issue.
I don’t get what you want—you want your child’s doctor, individually to be available to you 24/7? As if s/he would remember the facts about your child specifically in their head when you call them at midnight...? I also don’t follow how “inaccessible” they are or these long “waiting times”...you may need a different doctor if that’s what you are experiencing. I would also add that you’ve clearly never experienced dealing with the UK’s National Health Service if you think the US has “waiting times” or is “inaccessible”. There many things that would be taken care or in two weeks here you get on a list for 6 months out. And I certainly didn’t have any doctors phone numbers I could call whenever I wanted when I lived there.
Life and death - 911. Good to have poison control number too.
Immediate assistance when your ped office is not reachable - urgent care
Otherwise, call the office and depending on the office, they usually get back to you to see what can be done.
New dad here with a newborn (16weeks now) and an MD. Agree that access is not great here in the US, but I can assure you that most ‘emergencies’ aren’t that, and that they either resolve on their own (can’t count the number of weird rashes our son had) or can be addressed a day or two later.
Telehealth is a cheap, always available, and easy option for addressing an urgent need. Otherwise, while the familiar face of your pediatrician is nice, it’s not necessary and you have to remember your doctor has a life too and many other patients. They’ll be there for you the next day or first thing Monday morning, and if you’re truly worried (and want to avoid an ED during COVID), do telehealth or call 911. EDs are still seeing peds patients and there are plenty of ways to ensure safety if you’re careful.
And I’m not diminishing the fear factor, we had plenty of scares in the first few months!