Dr. Kristie Richardson Chandler, MD

We have been seeing Dr. Chandler for over a year (my baby is 16 months), and recently (within the last 2 weeks) decided to change our primary care provider to a different practitioner, as her approach was not a good fit for our needs. My son was in physical therapy for congenital torticollis from 8 weeks old until about a year old, and still sees a speech / oral myofunctional therapist for some difficulties he's had with feeding from the time he was a newborn. He also has a cows milk protein allergy, which we identified early on--but not with Dr Chander's help, unfortunately. When I asked her if some of his irritation after feeding may be due to an allergy she suggested that it may be but that he will grow out of it and there's not much of a point of doing anything about it. I think that response may have been okay if I had asked her directly if she thought I should do something about it-- but that wasn't my question. I asked what we could do to identify whether that was, indeed, the issue as I was comfortable eliminating dairy from his diet if that meant making him more physically comfortable until he "grow's out of it". Now over a year later, my son is still allergic to cow's milk. Luckily, the office's referral specialist is good about working with parents to get the referrals they need, so we were able to see an allergist and a pediatric GI at appropriate times. However, I got the sense that Dr. Chandler is not involved with this referral process as one time we were referred to a mental health counselor (cognitive behavioral therapist) rather than a physical therapist, when I requested that I'd like my son to be assessed for infant torticollis after having another specialist suggest we get a referral from our pediatrician. I also shared with Dr. Chandler about our other challenges over the course of our several well visits. Several visits later, she still proceeded to suggest things that were not appropriate for my son's needs (such as suggesting he drink cows milk after he started eating solid foods), making it clear that she did not remember anything about his case. She also said at an earlier visit, before we'd started physical therapy, that "this baby does not need physical therapy" because he had not yet missed his milestones and because he could turn his neck (even though it was clear that when she turned his neck, there was discomfort); this may be fine for parents who prefer to wait and see if their child falls behind, before intervening. However, our family's values are more in line with an early intervention approach, to prevent developmental delays-- so this was certainly in conflict with how Dr Chandler operated, from the start. And indeend, when I brought my child to multiple practitioners who specialized in infant tortacollis, all agreed that may son should be treated to prevent postural asymmetries and developmental delays. Another issue, more generally speaking, was that during routine well visits, it felt like Dr. Chandler would come in the room, spout off a list of "how-tos" and "you shoulds" based on what sounded like very outdated textbook-type recommendations, which were not at all individualized for my child. In sum, I think our experience would have been quite different if Dr. Chandler had taken more of a patient-centered approach and been more present when we spoke to her, truly listening and processing our concerns. Instead, I often felt as though I could not ask questions and I started not to trust her recommendations when it became clear that she had not noted (or had not read notes?) about my son's case discussed in the previous visits. Unfortunately, I do not recommend her for parents who want to be an active part of medical decision-making for their little ones.