At What Age Do We Transition Out Of Pediatrics?

Teenagers used to be the orphans of the medical care system – too old for pediatrics, but too young for internal medicine. This is no longer true – we love teenagers, and welcome them as our patients!

There is no exact age at which patients stop seeing their pediatricians and switch over to family practice, internal medicine, or in some cases OB-GYN. It is an individual call, but we do have some guidelines. Since we at Bayside Pediatrics practice both pediatric and adolescent medicine, we continue to provide all adolescent medical care for our teenage patients through age 18-19.

When a patient goes to college he or she is often cared for by student health services. We will usually be open to continuing to take care of you when you are in town and also be available for telephone calls from college.

When a girl has had a baby herself, we will welcome the baby to Bayside, but this is generally a good time to switch to an adult practitioner.

Some of our patients have disabilities that we have treated for years, and it is difficult to make a transition to another practitioner. We take our responsibility to handle this transition seriously, and in some cases we will delay the transition until we are sure of good and safe care for you.

Sometimes our patients are just reluctant to move on, often because our relationship is so good. Our Bayside practitioners are free to make this call on their own, but if a serious medical problem comes up, we will want to make the transition at that point.