Dr. Dean Potter: The best reason to refer a patient to Mayo Clinic in particular, the Children's Center in the Division of Pediatric Surgery is that we really would like to coordinate care with that home provider. Those referring providers really need to be incorporated into the treatment team. We need to communicate back and forth to each other, and really get the patient back to their normal life so that they can, you know, go to school and be happy and healthy and, you know, be taken care of by their local provider.
Dr. Denise Klinkner: The pediatric surgery group here makes an effort to ensure that you get timely feedback as to what the plans are and what our recommendations are. We try to do as much care at home as possible, because it is a challenge for families whose parents or family members are working, they simply cannot take that much time off in a way. And so we tried to make sure that transition to us and back to a home is well done. Because we know that when that coordination happens, the outcomes for the patient are better.
Dr. Dean Potter: Rare is rare, but when you're at a large medical center, like Mayo Clinic, we tend to see these things more frequently. And we do have expertise in areas that are very, very uncommon.
Dr. Stephanie Polites: And we will assemble as big of a team as we need and pulling resources from wherever we need to help them reach a diagnosis and then to give them the treatment that's needed.
Dr. Dean Potter: The thing that really excites me is the the number of experts that we have within the Children's Hospital.
You know, that starts with, obviously, for us pediatric surgery, but it goes to the medical specialties, radiology, interventional, radiologists, oncologic specialists, and how well we work together and integrate the care for a patient that's referred to us. And you know, it really is a collaboration every day.
Dr. Stephanie Polites: We see patients only in a fraction of their lifetime and we see them when they are sick, but their home physicians have known them and probably their families their entire lives. And so I just feel very fortunate to be a part of that. And when patients and their physicians put their trust in us to join their care team