Collaborating with Families
For Dr. Lavania, creating an open, inviting, and collaborative environment for families begins with establishing herself as a trusted resource. This includes staying up-to-date on research and new evidence-based approaches to pediatric care.
“As pediatricians, we are the first line for educating families on how to care for their children’s health and how to parent,” she explains. “If we don’t have the resources for them, I think we’re failing them. For example, if you’re not reading up on what the latest research shows about the impacts of too much technology or the change in anxiety and depression in children, you might be missing out on getting critical information to your patients.”
Patient and family education is essential to how Dr. Lavania practices. “We harp on education,” she says. “The front desk will help families understand their insurance policies and what a deductible is and why they have a bill. They really help people understand in a nonjudgmental way.”
For her part, Dr. Lavania provides evidence-based information on common pediatric questions on her website and to all of her patients personally, and she’s not afraid to have dialogue on controversial topics. “Vaccines are always a big question for people,” Dr. Lavania explains. “Especially after COVID, people are wondering if vaccines are safe, and ‘should we be vaccinating?’ Usually with my current patients, the families already trust me. So they really appreciate me sitting down and explaining how vaccines work and answering their questions instead of just saying, ‘No, this is how it’s done.’” However, while she values answering questions compassionately, Dr. Lavania has become a bit more strict with her practice and is no longer accepting new patients who are unvaccinated.
“When we first opened, we used to take non-vaccinators in hopes that we could change their minds,” Dr. Lavania explains. “But when that group of people started coming to see me, they just didn’t believe anything I said—whether it be about breastfeeding or screen time or vaccines or anything. And I just realized it wasn’t just about vaccines. It’s a bigger cultural issue.”
The phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy is, of course, widely known and of major concern to most pediatricians. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine mistrust and misinformation has become more widespread, and that vaccine hesitancy has now spread to other vaccines. The decision to take (or not take) unvaccinated patients is a deeply personal and specific one for independent physicians. Most pediatric practices who do not take unvaccinated patients do so in an effort to protect newborns and children with weakened immune systems who might interact with each other in waiting or exam rooms. “When we realized we can’t change peoples’ minds, it became too much of a risk for us,” says Dr. Lavania.
Dr. Lavania has completed diverse training that helps her support families with a wide array of questions. As an IBCLC, she is able to help new parents with lactation, breastfeeding, and tongue-ties when they come to see her with their newborn. “I learned about breastfeeding in residency, but the IBCLC gives me a deeper level of knowledge and credibility with patients,” she says. “That way I can encourage them to look at lower-intervention options for things like tongue ties, and they really trust my advice.”
It’s important to Dr. Lavania to establish trust with patients through honing her expertise. So as she began to notice a surge in inquiries into children’s mental health and developmental issues, she decided to complete further training to better serve her patients in this area.
