coverage

Selecting an obstetrician or a pediatrician is an important choice, not one that should be made by picking a nice sounding name in the Yellow Pages.

Making the right choice requires doing a little homework.

Generally, the same obstetrician will take care of other deliveries in your growing family. So he or she needs to be one with whom the mother and father feel comfortable, advises Dr. Jeff Gunnells, who is an obstetrician/gynecologist with Henderson & Walton Women’s Center, chief of obstetrics at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham and a deacon at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Homewood.

Added consideration

Actually, deciding on an obstetrician is a two-fold choice. By choosing a particular obstetrician, you also are picking the hospital in which to deliver, added Gunnells.

He suggests patients ask for recommendations from friends who share the same value system.

Patients, he pointed out, need to question the physician about his or her view on the sanctity of life and feelings about church, God and family.

Although a banner on the office door or the letterhead may proclaim that the person is a Christian physician, that may not translate into the way her or she deals with patients, he cautioned.

In picking an obstetrician, it is suggested that patients look for one in a longstanding practice, with privileges at a hospital boasting an intensive care unit and other support services to handle complications that may arise.

Patty Cleveland, a pediatric nurse at Oak Mountain Pediatrics (a Baptist Health Center) in Pelham, conducts classes on choosing a pediatrician.

Cleveland said many new parents aren’t sure how to let their choice be known. She said all that is necessary is for the mother to tell her obstetrician and the labor/delivery nurse her preference in pediatricians.

Even if the pediatrician doesn’t practice at the hospital where the delivery occurs, a neonatalogist will be available to care for the baby after birth, said Cleveland. Medical records can be conveyed to the pediatrician of choice upon discharge from the hospital.

Parents do, however, need to check with the pediatric clinic to make sure their insurance plan will be accepted, Cleveland noted.

Gunnells said there are some definite issues about which parents should inquire before deciding on a pediatrician. For example, parents should find out how quickly visits can be scheduled for healthy babies, if the office hours are convenient and how after-hours calls are handled. In many cases, the after-hours calls are handled by someone other than the physicians in the practice.

Advice of friends

He said a good place to start looking for a pediatrician is by asking friends for recommendations.

Eva Arnold, a labor and delivery nurse at Brookwood Medical Center and a member of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Pell City, covers this subject her prenatal classes.

One of the things she suggests that parents look for at the pediatric clinic is whether there are separate waiting areas for sick and healthy children. The reason, she said, is because infants have developing immune systems. If a healthy 2-month-old is exposed to an older child with even a simple infection, it may result in a serious illness in the infant.

Parents should make an appointment to meet and talk with the pediatrician they think they’d like to use.

The final check on doctors would be to make sure they are certified by their respective medical boards, Gunnells added.