Your 21 year old daughter has made so many trips to see her general practitioner that today the nurses did not even make her crutch back to one of the exam rooms. The process of getting ready for nursing school has included several office visits to make sure that she is current on all of her vaccines. Most specifically, the extra tuberculosis skin tests have required visits two to three mornings a week. The fact that she is just three weeks out from a hip labrum surgery, of course, has made these frequent office visits a little more of a challenge.

Fortunately, the rapport that she has established with the nurses in the family physician’s office has allowed her to ask questions about their backgrounds and nursing school experiences. In fact, your daughter smiles, nearly to the point of laughing, when she explains that the last two times she has gone in the nurses have come out to the waiting room to see her instead of making her crutch back to see them.

New Platforms for Care Expand As the Nation Continues to Deal with Increased Need for Medical Care
In a time when so many more Americans have access to health care than ever before, the medical establishment continues to explore the best ways to provide these needed services. From walk in health clinics that require no appointments and offer short wait times to the traditional care that many patients receive from their family physicians and pediatricians, it is always important to understand the kind of health care options that are available.
Whether you find yourself looking for nearby pediatric clinics for back to school check ups or doctors appointments for other reasons, it is always important to consider the insurance coverage you have available, as well as recommendations and evaluations from past patients. And while there are a number of reasons that people visit pediatric clinics, it is always important to talk to your health care provider about the importance of childhood vaccinations and immunizations.

The Need for Childhood Immunizations Continues to Increase

Did you know, for instance, that smallpox is the only disease eradicated from the planet? A recent David Letterman interview with Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, explained that if we can get polio eliminated it will be only the second disease eradicated from the planet. The few cases that are remaining of polio, of course, are in some very challenging and dangerous locations along the Iraq and Iran borders where it remains very challenging to get in medical teams.

The My Next Guest Needs No Introduction episode then went on to talk about people in this country who willingly make a decision to not get their children or loved ones vaccinated. Gates, of course, had some strong comments on that subject. As Letterman explained that he grew up in that era when children literally went to bed scared to death that they could wake up gravely ill, Gates pauses just a second before answering. When she does, her position is very clear. “I tell people they are making a huge mistake.” As the two well known public figures continue to chat, they, of course, touch on the danger that is present when parents are not vaccinating their children for measles, a disease that is again popping up in parts of the country.

Fortunately, the doctors and nurses as pediatric clinics across the country can help make sure that their patients are up to date on the vaccinations that can keep individual children, and entire communities, safe. According to research from that year, in 2016, 91.1% of U.S. children of that age were vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). Parents who routinely visit a family physician or one of the many pediatric clinics, in fact, may be more likely to follow the advice for routine vaccinations and immunizations. For instance, most doctors recommend that a child will need wellness checkups at ages two weeks, two months, four months, six months, nine months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, two years, two and a half years, three years, four years, and five years. Everyone of those visits provides an opportunity to make sure shots are current.