My Healthcare Philosophy

I believe that the most important part of taking good care of a child is that the parents and doctor work together as a team. Together we should work to determine the cause of the illness and treatment (if it is treatable), and to make your child as comfortable as possible in the process. Like most doctors, I am not perfect at always making a correct diagnosis and giving the correct treatment. I diagnose problems based on information obtained (your history) and the result of an exam. Even with that data, it is not always possible to determine exactly what is the cause of the symptoms. I base my judgment on percentages and the likelihood of these symptoms fitting to a particular disease. As an aid, I will often order blood tests, or get imaging studies. Most of the time I can make the diagnosis on a first visit and evaluation and provide the proper treatment. However, that will not happen every time. I won’t always be correct. Sometimes I have to try a treatment regimen to see if that works in order to rule out one disease over another before switching to another treatment. I will need your confidence that I am doing all that I can to discern the cause of the problem. We must work together sometimes over several visits to get it sorted out. In this way we work as a team. This is the teamwork between the doctor and parents I spoke about above.

This also means that when a treatment is prescribed, you, the parent, must make every effort to comply with the treatment instructions given. If you do not agree, I want you say something before you leave the office. Sometimes children do not get better because they are not administered the medications in a timely manner or the medicine is stopped prematurely. Sometimes parents have customs at home that do not harmonize with my recommendations. For instance, smoking at home (even if outside, it is still on your clothing and hair and hands) will worsen respiratory problems like asthma and allergies in children. Giving the bottle at bedtime with the child lying down (although nice for the parent to get them to sleep) will contribute to ear infections and bad teeth.

In order to work better as a team, there are some particular points that I would like to share regarding my viewpoint on the treatment of certain symptoms and problems.

Use these links for more information:

    * Antibiotics
    * Fever
    * Cough
    * Diarrhaea

Finally, sometimes I will not be able to figure out what the cause of a problem is and then will have to refer your child out to a specialist. We have great resources at Texas Children’s Hospital and Memorial Hermann’s in Houston.