I thought Gail's ideas for educating physicians were great.
  Our breastfeeding co-alition just had a conference on Friday. We had a
local OB/GYN speak on "Promoting a Mothers Choice to Breastfeed" One of
the points he made was that many of us promote BF in a counter productive
way. Say for example your goal is 75% of mothers Bf at discharge with 50%
continuing to six months."What kind of a goal is that? Aim for the sky."
He went on to show us how experts in their own fields had totally
underestimated things. The president of IBM saying the world only needed
about five computers and that no one would ever need a computer in their
home. A noble prize winning physicist saying no one would ever be able to
tap the energy of the atom. And other examples that we should just aim
higher.
 At the end someone asked the question about how to educate the
physicians and he said to make it appealing by showing them you could
increase referrrals to them. And to unburden his office in some way. He
would like nothing better than to have some one he could refer to and
know his patients weren't falling between the cracks.  Well this response
really raised my hackles. That is not educating that is just giving him
somewhere to dump things he doesn't want to hassle with.  I really get
frustrated when mothers call "I got your name from the Doctors offfice."
While I am glad they are giving out my number instead of incorrect
information, these calls are often very simple questions that the office
personnel really could handle if they wanted to and if they would let us
educate them. The ones that are really frustrating and worrisome are the
ones that I have to turn around and refer back to the doctor (if they
need antibiotics or something) That makes three phone calls for the
mother and she feels like she is getting the run around. So yes the
physicians and their office personnel do need educating. Rather than a
seminar, where we would probably only get physicains that are already
interesrted any way, we are planning inservices at several of our doctors
offices.

Mary Graden LLL Idaho
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