Looking for DR

A good place to find a doctor is www.vitals.com. I like this site because it has opinions from other patients and ratings. I hope I was able to help you:)

I really like my kids Doctor. North Fulton Pediatrics, ###-###-####. 1285 Hembree Road, suite 100, roswell 30076. My kids see Richard Levitt. I fight him to give my kids antibiotics. He always brings up natural remedies that even I (the hippy, home cure queen, who still tries what my great grandma taught me first before calling the doctor) has never heard of. Now with vaccines, they are believers in PUBLIC safety. I don't remember them bringing up anything new or unusual. Please be careful of YOUR choice (in the end it is your choice). But a really good friend almost lost her baby last year from measles. He was not old enough for the vaccine. He got it from a kid whose parents didn't choose to vaccinate their child. Sorry, I don't want to spark some big debate on vaccines. It's your choice, just think of the bigger picture first. Thanks.

If every person I recommend Dr. Vaishali Kute (pronounced "Koo-tay")makes an appointment with her, she'll be so busy that I'll NEVER be able to get an appointment with her! :)
But she's really wonderful. She's located in Alpharetta, near the Northside medical complex (Old Milton Rd and GA 400)

I think she's recommended antibiotics for my son (now almost 3) just one time, and I'm not positive about that. There were a couple of times when I brought him in for sick visits and she said "Let's wait a couple of days - if he seems to be getting worse, call me back and we'll take
it from there." (And if you have to call her back, you actually get to talk to the doctor, not get robot telling you to "press 1 to leave a message" for whatever nurse happens to be on duty to eventually call you back."

She's very friendly to cross-cultural child-rearing practices and is a STRONG advocate for breastfeeding and attachment parenting practices. And as far as vaccines, I have found that she's more flexible than my older son's pediatrician (who is more "mainsteam" or "typcial"), but she still generally stays within the CDC guidelines. For instance, many, if not most, pediatricians administer a Hepatitus B vaccine at birth, and then a second one at 1-2 months. Dr. Kute waited until he reached 2 months before giving him his first Hep B shot, but first she made sure to ask me if there were any likelihood that he would be exposed to Hep B before his 2 month appt (like if anyone coming into contact with him might have it, or if he would be a childcare setting.) So she's still very careful, but she uses the guidelines as "guidelines" and balances it with what she knows about the particular patient.

She also tends to spread them out a little more, like instead of getting 4 shots one visit and none the next, she'll do 2 and 2, so that it's not bombarding the kid's immune system. Another time my son was a little sick at one of his "well" visits, and if I recall correctly, she decided to wait until the next visit for one of the vaccines he was scheduled for, which was just a few months later.(My other son's doctor was usually more concerned about "falling behind", even though the CDC guidelines always have room for flexibility.)

And as far as the flu shot, I could NEVER get a thimerisol-free flu shot at the old pediatrician's office. they just said "thimerisol doesn't cause autism and we don't have the special refrigerated storage space required for thimerisol-free shots." At Dr. Kute's office, she ALWAYS used thimerisol-free flu vaccines on her youngest patients, and if she had enough left over, she would offer it to the older kids as well. (She even gave it to my older son who wasn't even her patient one year!)

She doesn't REQUIRE her patients to vaccinate - she will still see your child, but she asks that you sign a "vaccine refusal" form. (And she warns that she will continue to nag you about it because she believes that it's "as important as breastfeeding." You can read her office policy for yourself:
http://www.drkute.com/ArticlePage.aspx?Article_id=5004

You can get a feel for her philosophy from the TONS of information and links on her website. She's a safety nut and will frequently advise her patients to go "above and beyond" the current recommendations, from nutrition to TV to carseats.

I see Dr. Margaret Beaudreux (sp?) at Primary Care Pediatrics for the same reasons you are looking for a doctor. I find her very easy to talk and find she is very open to alternative approaches. She has taken a lot of time with my kids every time we've been there and we have been very happy with her!