Reasonable expectations of a ped?

[cristeen]

If you call your ped with a simple question (can I give my 5 mo another dose of Motrin?), how long do you have to wait for a call back with an answer? If the child is screaming in the background during the entire phone call, do you get an answer sooner?

I'm seriously disgusted with my ped right now - I called almost 3 hours ago asking that exact question, and I still haven't heard back. My child was hysterically screaming all morning before finally falling into an exhausted sleep about 30 minutes ago. I finally called (a 3rd time) to ask WTF? and was basically told that the doctor has been seeing patients all morning and I'll get a call back when it's convenient.

Am I being ridiculous to expect an answer/phone call sooner? Have I just been spoiled by doctors in the past (adult medicine)?

[laohaire]

I am pretty sure I would have gotten a call back sooner. Probably it would have been the physician's assistant, or perhaps the nurse (not the doc), but that's fine with me.

I've called on Christmas Day and got the answering service and the doc called me back personally within 20 minutes. Maybe a little different since it wasn't a busy day at the office... but no, I don't think you are expecting too much here.

[texaspeach]

with our ped, I've always gotten a call back from the nurse within a couple of hours. we go to a big practice though so that may be why.

did you mention the rash, not eating and crying? with a 5 mo that seems like it would warrant a call back sooner.

[maptome]

Our ped has a triage service, so it depends on the severity of your question compared to other parents' at the time. A crying/motrin question may not be as high a priority as a vomitting/fever. I've called about spitting up and not gotten called back until the next day. But a fever got me a call back within a couple of hours. I know that our ped has a busy practice, so I find this reasonable. Also, I trust to triage service, but I have definitely been super pissed at them before when holding a crying baby.

[BlueWolf]

It's taken three days once to get a response back from my ped's office... but our normal doctor was out on vacation so it was the other doctors in his practice that dropped the ball. Our doctor was livid when he got back from vacation and I filled him in on how it took three days to get a call back. It was regarding them switching my DD ear infection medicine to something that would not give her diarrhea.

Other than that, it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours to hear back from the office.

[Aufilia]

I don't think it's ever taken more than an hour or two to get a call back about anything. Our ped's office has a nurse line that does most of the callbacks, though; I think the only time I've ever talked to a ped directly on a callback was the time they ended up telling me to take her to the ER.

[elmh23]

In my kids doctor's office (he's not a ped but a family doc) they have nurses who call you back. Sometimes they call back sooner than other times, depending on when they can catch the doc to ask about it. I've waited up to 5 hours before, but it was a pretty minor thing so I wasn't freaked. Other times, the receptionist put me on hold and got the nurse immediately (admittingly that was a very scary situation, dd's face was horribly swollen after taking a medication.)

For what you were calling for, I would expect to wait a couple hours. (And in that case, I would have already given my kid some more Motrin because there would have been enough time between doses.)

[Llyra]

I don't have to wait for a call back. Our doctor's office has someone who handles triage in live time all day and night-- a nurse who can answer basic questions like meds dosages and reactions or deciding if a child needs to be seen, etc. The nurse will refer questions that require more expertise to a doc, and then you have to wait for a call, but I've never waited more than half an hour even for a relatively minor issue. There's an on-call doc 24 hours a day whose only job is to handle emergency situations as they come, and field questions that come from parents.

That's one of the reasons I picked our pediatricans, even though philosophically sometimes we differ. There are more than 20 doctors in the practice, including a neonatologist, and you never have to wait for the help you need.

[snoopy5386]

we go to a ped who practices by himself - a very small practice, he doesn't even have a nurse. If you call in the morning, he calls back at lunch, if you call in the afternoon he calls back in the evening. That is how it works unless it is a true emergency. I'm fine with it considering the personal service we get with him at the office.