Is anyone here a paediatrician

@junior.doctor is a lovely paediatrician who might be happy to help? No one’s going to be able to offer free internet medical advice/diagnosis, though, as it would be pretty unethical, just fyi.

Agree - I am a paediatrician but those of us here who are doctors, contribute from an education / careers point of view, and are not able to give out medical advice.

If you have a general question, happy to help.

If you have a concern about a child - we would always advise the usual routes of GP / 111 if less urgent, or A&E / 999 if you are very concerned. Considering taking a child to healthcare is scary at the moment, but as paediatricians we are really keen to emphasise that we are still here, we're doing everything we can to make healthcare places safe for children and parents and to reduce infection risk, and any child who is ill, you should still seek help in the normal ways and not delay.

Thank you for replying

So basically, I’ve got an appointments scheduled with a paediatrician but my GP said that the consultation and questions would be via video so please could you tell me how it’s gonna work what they would ask etc...

Thank you!!!

It will depend how your local department are working.
Most appointments are still happening remotely - either via phone or video. A few appointments are happening face to face where absolutely necessary. Your clinic letter should give you the information about how your appointment is going to happen.

In my department I am currently doing phone consultations. I'm afraid it wasn't clear to me whether it's you yourself who's been referred, or whether it's your child and you're the parent. One of the challenges currently of the phone system is it's generally the child's / young person's parent who is phoned by the paediatrician. Whereas in reality, for a young person old enough to contribute, I would generally run a face to face consultation by speaking to the young person directly - with their parent present initially, but also with time for the young person to speak to me alone as well. This is harder to achieve via phone. I normally start with the parent, and then if the young person wants to and is able, I ask the parent to pass them the phone and speak to them as well. For our phone consultations, a secretary normally contacts my patients a few days in advance to confirm that we have the correct phone number and that the person is expecting the call. I'm not sure what video systems other people are using - but again anything like that should be made clear in the appointment letter.

I'm also assuming it's a 'new referral' appointment. During a phone / video appointment, we generally spend time asking lots of questions - about the problem you / they have been referred for, and then lots of background information as well. The specifics of what we ask will depend a bit on what you / they have been referred for. We generally start by asking you to talk about what the problem is, and then we will ask extra questions about it. So far, that's just like a normal face to face appointment would be. Obviously normally at that point we would then think about examining / looking at the patient, which obviously can't happen in exactly the same way at the moment. So, following the discussion, we then explain what we think might be happening - and a plan for what needs to happen next. That may involve organising for someone seeing you / them face to face at a future date, to examine (eg listening to heart / lungs), or do some measurements such as weight / height / blood pressure / etc. It may involve organising some investigations - blood tests or scans, and they will explain to you when / how they would be organised. If they suggest medication, then depending on what it is, sometimes you'll be asked to come to the hospital / pharmacy to collect, or sometimes we can liaise with your GP to prescribe it for you.

Things that are helpful for us: again this will depend a bit on whether you're a parent of a young child, or whether you're the patient yourself - but for younger children having the 'red book' to hand can be useful. If you / they are on any medication, having that accessible so you can tell us what it is, is also useful.

If you're the young person - to some people, phone appointments can feel very intimidating, to others, they can feel quite left out if their parent is talking on the phone and they can't hear what's being said / join in in the normal way. There is no right or wrong. If you don't want to join in and want your parent / carer to lead it, that's fine. If you're not being included and you want to speak to the doctor yourself, please do ask. We want to hear what you have to say.

Hope that's helpful.