It’s late at night on a weekend. Your child is screaming. They’ve got a rampant fever coupled with a pounding headache and your trusty supply of baby aspirin and ice packs have hitherto proved useless. Your child needs pediatric urgent care, but you are new to San Diego County and don’t know any local pediatricians, let alone one that might be open at this hour.
Children in trouble need specialized, urgent care catering to their specific needs. San Diego County has a population of over three million and covers an area of some forty-five thousand square miles. That’s over eleven thousand kilometers in metric terms. For your child to receive the immediate medical care that they need, you need to find a pediatric doctor as quickly as possible, but doing so of your own volition is a challenge in and of itself.
Finding a Pediatrician
A pediatrician is a doctor who specializes in treating children. Pediatrics, the discipline of medicine pertaining specifically to childhood illness and disease, is a broad spectrum of sub-disciplines that share the common goal of making the lives of children and parents alike easy and disease-free. A local pediatric doctor is your best bet for treating the everyday problems of your child, as they will know and understand the needs of your local community and common hazards in the surrounding area. For example, a local pediatrician would be aware by virtue of treating local patients of a flu outbreak at an area school or a product specific to your county of which non-local pediatric doctors may be ignorant. A good pediatrician will have an understanding of the differing healthcare needs of children as they age and the appropriate vaccination schedule mandated by health organizations in order to provide the best possible childhood health care for your family.
Urgent Pediatric Care in San Diego
San Diego-based medical groups and associations exist and the best of them are easily accessible online. The medical association should be accredited by AAAHC (the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care) and have a long-standing professional association with your local children’s hospital so your child’s medical records and those of your family are available at any time. There should be an option to find pediatric urgent care in San Diego so as to narrow the field of results, and the ability to contact a pediatric trauma center dedicated solely to the needs of children. Obviously, after-hours services must be available if the need for pediatric urgent care arises.
Even telephone health care advice can be immeasurably valuable when dealing with a sick or injured child, and such services must be attended by registered nurses able to direct you to the appropriate level of care and explain the needs of your afflicted child. Access to after hour care, without an appointment, is of utmost importance and the local medical group or association you are using needs to be able to cater to this. Visit here for more information.
