Serious concerns:…read more
Our first appointment was scheduled through the hospital, which led to confusion regarding the office location. We arrived ten minutes late to the correct office. Obviously, this was not the fault of the pediatrician, but I mention it because it is the only mitigating circumstance surrounding what followed.
Our visit was three days after I gave birth and was concerningly short. We were told our plans to exclusively breastfeed were likely doomed due to our child's alarming weight loss. As first time parents fresh out of the hospital, this was terrifying to hear and was not handled with compassion or proper explanation. Most of our questions went unanswered, and we left fearful that continuing to breastfeed could harm our baby.
Had the experience ended there, I would not be writing this review. I assumed it was simply a poor fit and scheduled with a new pediatrician the following day. When contacted about additional appointments and the newborn screening, I politely explained that this practice was not the right fit for our family.
Unfortunately, the situation escalated.
Our daughter received an abnormal newborn screening result. The state lab contacted this office, as they were still our pediatrician at the time, and informed them that she needed urgent retesting within 24 hours.
When the office called me, the person I spoke with was unable to pronounce the flagged amino acid/condition and instead asked me to spell it so I could search for it myself. Our daughter was not even a week old. Receiving news of a potentially serious metabolic disorder in this manner was beyond alarming. There was no explanation of what the condition was, what it could mean for her health, or how urgent the situation was. Just that I should google it.
I was instructed to go to UNC Rex's lab. I immediately drove an hour there, only to find out they could not perform the screening because it required two hours to process and it was twenty minutes before closing on a Friday. When we contacted the office again, the response was essentially, "Oh yeah, forgot about that, sorry. I guess you'll have to wait until Monday."
Considering we had just been told the testing needed to be repeated urgently within 24 hours, being told to wait another three days with no medical explanation was extremely concerning. I spent the next two hours calling hospitals trying to find somewhere that could perform the test, only to repeatedly be told this was something the pediatrician's office needed to arrange. During this time, I was unable to reach the office.
The following morning, our new pediatrician immediately began contacting hospitals on our behalf and attempting to obtain the necessary records. They also attempted multiple times to contact this office (and were unable), and my own voicemails to the nurse line went unanswered.
The state laboratory had not yet fully processed her results, meaning our new pediatrician could not obtain the necessary information. This office was the only one with access to the abnormal screening information at that time. We ultimately had to call the scheduling line ourselves just to get someone on the phone and have the results forwarded.
Although we had decided the practice was not the right fit, this occurred while this office was still our daughter's pediatric provider and responsible for coordinating follow up after an abnormal newborn screening result that was evidently severe enough to warrant a repeat screening within 24 hours.
At every step, we were left advocating for our daughter's care during an urgent situation with little guidance from the office responsible for coordinating it. This involved a less than one week old infant with a potentially serious newborn screening abnormality, and the way this situation was handled was unacceptable.
