Oh, you live way down there.

Yes, small town doctors can tend to be more personable than busy metropolitan doctors. Our PedEndo is in Tulsa and we’ve always been very pleased with him. A few others who post here use him, some who come in all the way from Missouri.

When it comes to the actually treatment of a patient, we’ve always observed that one doctor takes the lead, and any others take a more or less consultant status. When it comes to hormones, labs, adrenal crises, etc. Dr. Jelley (our PedEndo) is in charge. When it comes to other health matter, like Ginny’s recent bout with a bone infection, her regular pediatrician was in charge and Dr. Jelley was a very listened to consultant. Any opinion any other doctor, besides our PedEndo has about treatment regarding hormones or the affects of CAH, is treated as a suggestion to be approved or disapproved by the PedEndo. That way there’s no confusion. If any other doctor besides the PedEndo prescribed or suggested a treatment in regards to the kids hormone levels or treatment of any of the affects of CAH, we would defer the final decision to the PedEndo, in other words tell the doctor, "Well, we need to run that by Dr. Jelley first, and see what he says about it."

One thing most of us have learned is that a parent must be an aggressive advocate of their children health care. You must study about CAH so you can make better decision. You must establish guidelines or treatment and insist they are followed. For example one parent took their child to the emergency room where they were promptly ignored. That parent, seeing no action was being taken, pulled out their solu-cortef and began preparations for a shot. A nurse told them they weren’t allowed to do that, and the parent ignored the nurse and did it anyway, right in front of the murse. (You can read the original post at Andrea: Hospitalization this week (5/29/99 9:37 PM) from the archives)