Talked to a pediatrician about Ponseti

September 20, 2005

I had to take in for an ear infection on Friday and I saw a

pediatrician I haven't seen before. Since I like to take every

opportunity to tell doctors about Ponseti, I mentioned to him that

was born with clubfeet and that we were going to see our

orthopedic doctor that afternoon. He asked me who the doctor was and

I told him Dr. Mack at Shriner's in Springfield, MA. He looked

closely at 's feet and mentioned how great they looked. He said

there were several different methods for treating clubfoot and I

told him we used the Ponseti method.

Suddenly he became very interested and said he had just read about

Ponseti, but had never known anyone who used it. He continued to

look at 's feet while was happily walking around the

examining room. He began asking me questions about the method,

mentioning several times how unhappy he was with the results of his

other clubfoot patients who had had surgery. I told him about

Ponseti's 95% success rate and that we were four days away from

having major surgery when we found out about it.

He wanted to know if the casting was painful and I told him that

casting with 's original doctor always hurt him, but the

Ponseti casting never bothered him at all. He wanted to know why the

casts went all the way up the leg and when they did the tenotomy.

Finally, he said he was going to push for Ponseti in the future

because he was so unhappy with the results of his other patients. He

wanted to know what doctors in MA used Ponseti because there are no

doctors in Maine where we live.

I told him that I was thinking of writing a letter to our former

orthopedic doctor and tell him about our success with Ponseti so he

could give his patients another alternative besides surgery. The

pediatrician suggested I draft it with my pediatrician and have her

sign it too! I'm also going to send this pediatrician the article

that Dr. Dobbs wrote and give him a list of Ponseti doctors in MA.

I'm a little disappointed that our pediatrician has not shared this

information with her colleagues. But I feel confident this guy

will get the word out to patients in their practice.

Now I'm thinking of writing the other pediatric practices in my area

and sending pics of 's feet to let them know about Ponseti too.

and 11/10/03 bilateral cf dbb 14/7

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