Jay Patel and his pediatric staff isn't in the business of entertaining you. They don't have toys lining their waiting room walls like other children's doctors do. One measly activity center is all the sits on the floor. Not that your child would get the chance to play anyway. Dr. Patel sets his schedules just far enough apart to ensure that your stay in the waiting room is brief. By the time you check in, find a seat and pull the activity center out you are being called back to the examination area.
Here, the nurses are brisk. They take your child's vitals (blood pressure, head size, weight, height) and get them moved into the enclosed patient rooms with very little unnecessary chatter or small talk. They tell it how it is, tell you what you need to know and not much extra.
The walls in the patient room are huge, single colored canvases that stand pretty bare, save for one tiny set of stencils plastered to the wall (our last room had the Winnie the Pooh characters in extremely faded colors hanging up). The stencils are so close together that they do nothing to fill the empty space. They are the sole reminders that you are in a doctor's office designed for children. Well those and the signs hanging up that tell you not to eat and drink in the room and to take your dirty diapers out to the dumpster. Most adults, sans children, aren't walking around with dirty diapers on their being. There are no additional ads for medication, scary pictures telling you to repent or die or even information about common childhood diseases hanging on the walls. I like that.
When the Dr. comes in he inquires about the symptoms your child is suffering from, may swab a nose or cheek or check an ear or lung and then make a diagnoses. He will prescribe medicine if needed, but this is usually a last resort. Bim, bam, boom you are checking out and leaving faster than I ever imagined possible.
So why the three stars? As first time parents there are times that we feel we need more information and don't get it. If we ask, he tells us. It is just a matter of us thinking to ask. Other doctors seem to provide the information up front. This sometimes causes my wife to take an extra trip or make additional calls that possibly could've been avoided. I also go back to my first statement of Dr. Patel not entertaining you. He recently added televisions to the waiting area. I know this is pretty standard now-a-days but I'm a little weirded out that a pediatric doctor has no books in his waiting room but now has a television. That seems a bit backwards if you ask me. read more
