Pediatrics

We have had her for about two and half years. She was just an amazing pediatrician. We really loved her. We do not use her anymore because it is not feasible. She was very efficient, knowledgeable and understanding. She was not only providing wellness exams for my son but also provided wellness exams for my husband and me. She was providing lots of great information for us as parents. She was very communicative and provided thoughtful details about what we could expect next which was helpful. I always have questions and so after our first appointment, she always left some extra few minutes whenever we saw her for my list of questions. She is no more or less available than the rest of the pediatricians these days. Everybody there was phenomenal. I would use her if I lived in that area.

Our experience has been excellent in all aspects.

We are happy with the doctors that we deal with there. It's an unusual, old facility. Two of the doctors are great, and the third isn't as good. We can't get along with him personally.

It was awful. He is very unsupportive of nursing.

Dr. Newbold is very knowledgeable, unflappable, and professional. The practice is set up with three doctors and some front-office staff, and no nurses. You meet with the doctor in their office for the first 10 mins and discuss how things are going, then move into the exam room. The practice is a bit old and shows it. It looks a little shabby and "lived in." It is nice to have the doctor in charge of the appointment. Nothing against nurses, but the typical medical office these days gives you about 15 mins of face time with a doctor, after giving a history to the nurse, and it seems to me that there are too many opportunities for information to get missed or dropped. I always feel like we're in good hands with Dr. Newbold. She was able to set my suspicious four year old at ease, had great suggestions for easing him into seeing a new doctor, and she is good at communicating over the phone as well. We have also dealt with Dr. Yogman a couple of times, and he is very pleasant and smart.

Dr. Newbold goes above and beyond. To start, she is technically a great pediatrician and makes excellent referrals. But more importantly, she takes a lot of time to talk to us not only about our son's growth / illnesses / etc., but also his behavior (when he wouldn't sleep through the night yet and "sleep training" didn't work). We have talked to her on the phone many time about such general issues. In addition, she is very available. You can call at call-in hours (7am - 8:45am) if you aren't sure if you need to come in, or if you have a general question, and on some occasions she will even meet you on a week-end at the office, saving a trip to the ER. She also exhibits a great balance between supporting what works for you and letting you know when you should do something differently.

She is very thorough, very comfortable to work with, reassuring, and decisive.

It is a very friendly office. There is not a long wait to get in to see the doctors. They have a 7:00 AM calling time first thing in the morning to get a hold of the doctors by phone. If it is a true emergency, they try to get you into a time slot to be seen that day very promptly. Our son has been diagnosed with autism. This office helps us by giving us appropriate recommendation letters for the school for the services he needs in his classroom.

"We liked Dr Yogman very much, but wound up choosing another practice in the same building, West Cambridge Pediatrics. Dr. Y is a somewhat old-school solo practitioner, very knowledgeable and reassuring, and literally answers his own phone in the mornings. He took over the practice back in the 80s from noted pediatic author T.Berry Brazelton, his mentor -- he is an expert on child development, as well as on childhood obesity. He is avuncular, smiling, and very smooth with his young patients (we saw him with several in the waiting area and heard him giving a flu shot in the next room). He gives the impression of having seen it all before -- not nec. a bad thing for new parents! The only reason we decided, after much deliberation, to go with the other practice, was that the other doctor is the same age we are (mid-30s) and has young children of her own right now. We got a very friendly, peer vibe from her, as opposed to a more formal, professional vibe from Dr Yogman. But he has a great reputation and had we not comparison shopped we would have chosen him without hesitation."

I was given the name of this practice when I gave birth to my twins in 05/08. Specifically, I was referred to Dr. Yogman. He has a small practice that he owns. Other than himself, two younger pediatricians job share. After my initial phone call with Dr. Yogman, he passed me off to one of his associates without begin clear that he wasn't going to treat the twins himself. At first I was annoyed, but this actually turned out to be fine because the two young women who work for him are really wonderful and smart- although this isn't a great way to treat a new patient. However, the big problem is the way he runs his practice. Inevitably, since it's his practice, this affects anyone who sees any physician in the office- whether it's him or not. Most importantly, Dr. Yogman seems to have absolutely no sense of HIPAA- the federal laws that govern patient privacy and confidentiality. Literally every time I took my twins to the office, he was loudly talking to his staff at the front desk, which is open and in the middle of the waiting room. He mentions patient's names and medical issues so that everyone in the waiting room can hear. I'm not sure exactly how many patient names and their medical concerns were talked about in front of me, but it happened constantly. There is no separate area for him to talk to his staff. I've heard him say, "we need to talk to Mrs. X about her son's mental health issues" and, on another occasion, he talked to a mother and son at length in the waiting room about whether or not he was going to get a chest x-ray and why. His front desk staff return all phone calls from the same area, so that everyone in the waiting room can hear the call. So, here's how it goes when you, as a parent, call in about your sick child during office hours: You talk to the front desk staff, and everyone in the waiting room can hear their end of the phone call. The front desk person then finds your pediatrician, and relays your questions. This likely also occurs in the waiting room area where it can be overheard. Unless it sounds serious, the front desk staff will then return your call, again in front of the entire waiting room, and tell you what the pediatrician said. Which brings me to another worrisome point. There is no nurse in this practice. The front desk staff, who field these calls, have no medical training. HOPEFULLY nothing is lost when they relay your question to the doctor, but this is an incredibly disturbing practice. With one exception, I never spoke directly to a person with any medical training when my twins, under 7 months, were sick, unless in PM. At times, prescriptions were called in without this having occurred. It's sad, because the two young pediatricians are quite good and very nice. But in the end, I switched practices. I'm in healthcare and not only was I appalled at the practice, so were all of my colleagues. It's simpy unsafe and unethical. And their HIPAA practices aren't legal.