Prenatal FAQ’s

Will you come to see me and my baby at the hospital?  When?
Yes.  We see newborns at Strong Memorial, Highland, Rochester General and Park Ridge Hospitals.  One of our pediatricians will come to see your baby within 24 hours of birth.  It may be your primary pediatrician or another from our group.  Our pediatricians take call a week at a time so whomever is on call the week that you deliver will come to visit you.

How soon after we leave the hospital will we need to come to the office?  And how often thereafter?
We see most babies a few days after leaving the hospital, then again at 2 weeks of age and then about every 2-3 months thereafter for the first 18 months.  You will receive a full schedule of visits as part of your new patient packet.

Will we always see my child’s own pediatrician?
Most of the time but not always.  We try very hard to keep your child’s well visits with his or her primary care physician but there will be times, especially for illness visits, where you may see another provider.  This may be one of the other physicians or, possibly, one of our experienced nurse practitioners.  We believe that there is value to you getting to know the other providers so that you are comfortable with them in the event that they need to help you through an illness or other medical issue.

How far out are you scheduling appointments?
We schedule as far out as 3 months but well visits can frequently be arranged earlier than that.  Illness visits can typically be seen the same day, especially with the use of our morning walk-in hours.

Is there a pediatrician available by phone 24 hours a day?
Yes.  There is a pediatrician on call all day, every day.  If you call during office hours one of our nurses will answer first and can often help you with their vast knowledge and many years of experience.  At night we use a nurse triage system that covers our office as well as others and they too can answer many questions or concerns.  If, however, you or the nurse are not comfortable with the situation or need more assistance one of our pediatricians will be paged and call you promptly.

Do you share call with any other doctors?
Yes.  We share call with 3 pediatricians in solo practices:  Dr. Eisenberg, Dr. Hartle and Dr. Garcia.  It is a small minority of the time that they are on call for us and very rare that they would visit a new baby in the hospital but you may have occasion to speak with them.  We meet with them regularly and feel that they provide excellent care to our patients when needed.

If my child had to be admitted to the hospital where would he or she go?
Almost all of our patients are sent to the Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong.  We have no direct affiliation with Strong (i.e. we are a private practice not owned by any health system) but that is where we have our primary admitting privileges.  We manage the care of most of our patients while they are at Strong and feel fortunate to have such a world-class facility in our community.

How do you feel about vaccines?
Vaccination is probably the most important thing that we do as pediatricians, both for the health of your child and for general public health as well.  Vaccines are arguably the most important advance in medicine in the past several hundred years, on par with the discovery of antibiotics.  We understand that any injection into your child comes with a level of concern and anxiety.  We will, and do, work with families that have objections to vaccinations but we will also do our best to convince you why, for the vast majority of children, they are a very good idea.  We are happy to discuss any specific concerns you may have with individual vaccines as well.

How do you feel about antibiotics?
We agree with the Centers for Disease Control which state that antibiotics are powerful medicines that work well for bacterial infections but need to be used judiciously.  We do prescribe antibiotics for such things as ear infections, urinary infections and strep throat.  We always see a child first before prescribing antibiotics to make sure that we are treating the right illness and not using them for a virus where they would have no effect.  There is a growing problem with antibiotic resistance in certain bacteria and we are doing our part to not overuse antibiotics.If a child becomes very sick we want the medicines to work.

Do your pediatricians have areas of special interest or expertise?
Yes.  All of our pediatricians are board certified in general pediatrics but each also has some areas of additional training or interest.  Some of them are listed in the brochure and we would be happy to talk with you more about them during your visit.

How is Genesis Pediatrics different from other pediatric offices?
There are several ways which I will describe below but the most important are the people at Genesis.  We love what we do and we hope that it shows.  Many of our new families come to us because of word-of-mouth referrals.  We work very hard to be friendly, understanding, and diligent in taking care of our patients and their families.  Visiting our office and interacting with our staff should be our best advertisement.

One thing that sets us apart from most offices is the fact that we are paperless.  All of our medical records are computerized.  Each doctor and nurse has his/her own laptop to use when caring for your child.  This allows us fast and easy access to your information when you call or visit.  It also allows us to do much of our communicating (prescriptions to pharmacies, lab tests, talking with specialists) through the computer.  We feel that this is the future of medicine and have been pleased with the benefits to our office and our patients.

Another difference is that we have walk-in hours every day, Monday through Friday, from 8-9am for acute illness visits (illnesses that have recently developed).  Patients are seen on a first-come-first-served basis and no appointment is needed.  This may allow you to get to work or your child to get to school should the illness be of lesser severity.  We have evening hours Monday and Tuesday until 8pm and Saturday morning hours every week.  We also have a lactation consultant on staff and an independent psychologist that works out of our office.  These are just a few of the differences that make Genesis unique.

How do I go about choosing you as my pediatrician?
Filling out the paperwork while you are here is helpful but does not obligate you to choose us.  It is also helpful for you to let us know that you have chosen Genesis (while here for your prenatal visit or by phone afterwards) so that we can help you with additional forms and insurance papers.  The final decision, however, comes when you are at the hospital to deliver your baby and they ask you who your pediatrician is.  When you give them the name of one of our doctors the hospital will call us and that sets everything in motion.

We hope that this sheet has answered many of your questions but, as your baby will show you, there are always new things to learn!  Please call us if there is anything else you would like to know.

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