Being a parent isn’t a Monday-through-Friday gig.
Neither is being a pediatrician.
The Everett Clinic started Saturday Pediatric Care Clinics because life happens on weekends.
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Now, moms and dads don’t have to fret all weekend or wait until Monday.
“It’s a way to keep patients out of emergency rooms,” said Dr. Jane Lester, a pediatrician at the Founders Building in Everett.
“It’s a quiet, peaceful way to go to the doctor. It can be frantic during the week.”
Routine checkups are a big draw at the Saturday clinics, offered only at Marysville and Mill Creek sites.
Parents are fiercely devoted to their pediatricians. It’s like women and their hairstylists. They don’t stray.
The clinic’s 26 pediatric providers rotate coverage, so appointments can be made in advance with the desired doc.
The Saturday clinics started in February. Sunday clinics are slated to open in 2013.
Leah and Gary Davy have taken their two children to Lester’s practice since birth. Daughter Mya is 3. Son Thomas sprang into the world on New Year’s Day in 2011.
The family’s move from Everett to Renton five months ago wasn’t about to change that.
“I like keeping the same doctor,” Leah Davy said.
“Their medical history stays in one place.”
With the Saturday clinic, her husband doesn’t have to take off from his IT job to go to the kids’ checkups.
“He tries to go to all of them,” she said. “It helps to have the extra hand. He can take one of them out to the waiting room.”
Pediatric visits with Lester are also a family affair for Pramodini Ravishankar and Gurudath Ramabhatt and their 4-year-old son, Manusvath.
Having Saturday appointments a short distance away is win-win for the one-car, one-income, one-doctor family.
On a typical day, Ramabhatt, an airplane project manager in Everett, leaves his Bothell home for work at 5 a.m., returns 12 hours later for dinner with the family, then goes back to the office until about 10 p.m.
“We are very keen on not changing our pediatrician at any cost,” he said. “Dr. Lester makes us feel very comfortable and we feel she is part of the family. Manusvath is comfortable with her.”
“He knows what shots are,” added the boy’s mom. “He says, ‘I’ll go to the doctor if I get a sticker afterward.’ She spoils the kids.”
To make an appointment
The Saturday Pediatric Care Clinics at Mill Creek and Marysville are open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for walk-in and scheduled appointments.
Patients not established with The Everett Clinic can call any pediatric office to set up a Saturday appointment.
Clinic patients should contact their child’s primary care provider to make an appointment. For more information, go to http://tinyurl.com/saturdayclinic.
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