How to use a surgery and a waiting room

Leave strollers and prams outside in the corridor.
Be kind and put shoes cover available at the entrance.
Remember to take extra nappies, a bottle with milk or water, a snack for older children. Please be careful, refrain from chocolate covered biscuits…they stain.

Before leaving, check that you don’t leave items of clothing behind. Make sure your child takes his/her toys back home and doesn’t, by mistake, leave with something he/she “discovered” in the surgery or in the waiting room.

Consultations by appointment

To evaluate your child’s general development a complete bodily examination as well as an exhaustive interrogation takes place where systematically questions are asked about his/her psychomotricity, sleeping pattern, diet and attitude to food, his/her role and interaction with family members (jealousy) and in groups (kindergarten, school etc).

I suggest you prepare a list of questions to ask me, and at the same time prepare yourself to answer all my above mentioned questions.

It is recommended to leave siblings at home. Otherwise it is nearly unavoidable that whilst I concentrate on my patient, the sister or brother has to go to the loo; has an irrepressible urge to speak; absolutely wants to play with an object out of his reach; squeals to sit on his/her mother’s lap; wants a turn on the examination table…(list to be continued).

Simultaneous consultations for two children are not recommended. Whenever there are two parents and two children in one room there is inevitably a different dynamic. Crossed conversation lines between one and the other parent and me, between the parents themselves, parents and children, the children themselves, me and my little patients….not to mention the crying and quarrelling for ”sweet nothings” between the siblings.

Whatever the nature of a problem, the child’s presence is indispensable. It makes no sense whatsoever to talk “behind his/her back”. On the contrary, the simple fact of openly discuss a matter in front of a child, on the neutral territory of a doctor’s surgery, can sometimes have the pleasant effect that the problem unexpectedly and suddenly disappears. On the other hand, the presence of a sibling is strictly contra-productive. Especially if she/he conveniently is brought along to have ears or throat quickly checked. If there is a psychological problem, the child concerned should feel that you as parent are ready to take care of him/her and set aside time.
This kind of consultation loses its value if the child feels “sandwiched in” between other matters and treated as an afterthought.

The serious psychological problems are only dealt (one hour) with in some Saturday’s mornings.

The Feeding of Infants
 
Body Care
 
Some medical advices
 
Prescriptions
 
Medical Surveillance of Children in Belgium
 
The Surgery