If you are expecting or are a new parent shopping around for a pediatrician, here are some tips to take with a grain of salt:

1) The most important thing to look for in a pediatrician, of course, is that he or she appoints his office with appropriate art. Like this gorgeous painting:

Leave immediately if there’s stuff like this up on the wall:

2) Ask what their vaccine policy is, and whether it aligns with what you decide for your child. We are on an alternative vaccine schedule–we’ve had some, but not all vaccines. A doctor I trusted recommended reading The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library) before our daughter was born, and this helped us decide on an alternative schedule that was comfortable for us.

3) Make sure your doctor has not only textbook knowledge, but also wisdom that can only come from experience and common sense. When we moved down from Berkeley and had to look for a pediatrician again, we had the unfortunate experience of seeing a rather young and extremely arrogant doctor who had had a few years of experience including some sort of internship with impoverished kids. While this is excellent experience, if this is one of your only experiences, we have a problem. He saw that our daughter was in the 3rd percentile in weight on his little chart, and practically accused us of starving her. He may have seen this when he was working in 3rd world countries (of course, by no means does poverty itself make you a bad parent) and I know that there are negligent parents here, but…

I was pissed.

He didn’t care that we had been seeing doctors on a frequent basis to monitor her development and growth since she was born who had 15-30 years more experience than he did and had seen many slow-weight gain children. He didn’t listen to our feeding issues and struggles with low milk supply, her aversion to more than 8 different formulas on the market, trying to feed her with a feeding tube attached to my breast that I pumped out of a syringe, being previously tested for cystic fibrosis, breastfeeding around the clock, and having people who love her make sure she’s eating around the clock while running up high bills on their credit card so their child can eat frequently, mostly organic, and take expensive supplements. He didn’t care that she had a father who works himself to the bone or a mom who will wear some pretty prehistoric garb her mom and mother-in-law give her so that she can save money so that more can be spent on her baby. And that her slow weight gain is one of the main reasons why I wasn’t ready to put her in day care and I stay at home.

Any parent understands this–you do everything possible for your kid, and if you meet someone who says you’re not trying, you can get a little upset. I don’t think he was a parent then, but that’s not an excuse. I’ve met plenty of people who don’t have children but who are far more compassionate and understanding of parents than this doctor.

Instead this Troodon just looked at the chart and proceeded to insult us, blame us, basically telling us we weren’t trying hard enough, and denigrating our vaccine schedule (when the office staff had assured us they were a vaccine-friendly practice). We sat there, stunned. He called back suspiciously soon after I requested the office to immediately fax over my daughter’s entire record and, although he didn’t apologize, tried to ingratiate himself with me. I thanked him and tried to politely end the conversation. I wished afterwards I could have said a million things to him. But I’m one of those who can never think of comebacks in time.

So look for a pediatrician with experience and sound common sense. And one who listens.

4) Referring to the Troodon above, don’t choose one who insults you or your parenting. Obviously there are unfortunately parents who neglect their children. But an experienced doctor will know which ones who don’t.

5) Don’t get an underreactor or an overreact0r. An under-reactor will look completely bored when you are addressing your concerns. The underreactor we saw was more interested in her golden flats and was as frigid as that really really icy time in the Palaeozoic era. The overreactor (who unfortunately was a good friend and has an excellent reputation by all other accounts) we saw disagreed with me when I said that I thought my daughter, who was running a high fever for days but acting normal, had roseola (a common viral illness in babies). He prescribed Tamiflu and made my screaming daughter skip dinner and get a test for blood poisoning where 2 technicians and I had to hold her down while they kept blowing her vein, until I told them that I didn’t care if they didn’t have enough vials, take your hands off my baby. The single dose of Tamiflu we gave our daughter made her throw up and get sick, and we decided not to give her anymore of it. A few days later, the tell-tale rash of roseola blossomed all over my daughter and we called the doctor. He was extremely embarrassed and said that he hadn’t listened to me, and that I was right. Again, refer to #3 and get a pediatrician who listens.

I’m not saying that a good doctor will always be right or perfect. But you want them to be pretty darn close to it when it comes to your child. You want them to care. But you don’t want them to stress you out, either.

6) If you think it’s going to be hard for only one parent to take her to the pediatrician, find one who has Saturday hours.

7) Again, make sure the art is conducive to a child’s temperament. You as a sophisticated adult probably would not mind getting a shot in an office that had the following painting, but your baby might: