Share review of Dr Wolfgang Muller

Dr Wolfgang Muller 2021-10-29 Person 5 5 0

We have seen Dr Müller for both our children a few times now, and always like to provide feedback. What follows is detailed but written in the hope it is of help to those parents / carers looking to get a holistic view of Dr Müller’s style of care. Since becoming a mum some 10 years ago I am consistently struck by how the UK’s paediatric model is so heavily geared towards illness, not wellness. So much focus on intervention at the point when children are poorly - and of course that’s a big part of the first few years as they pick up so many bugs - but barely any proactive airtime given to the foundational elements of a child’s health (diet/nutrition/physical activity, mental health, social/environmental/school influences etc). I get that system pressures make this difficult in the NHS, but the absence of such an approach in the private sector baffles me. And it’s exacerbated by so much reliance on parents to detect the early warning signs of physical and / or mental health issues. As mums and dads with so few reference points we simply do not always know what to look for and can struggle to distinguish between a parental niggle (one of so many), and a genuine concern. As our first (amazing, long since retired South African) paediatrician used to say “it’s important to notice, but not everything you notice is important”. So when Dr Müller shared his paediatric screening model with me (based on the one used in Germany where he trained), I felt a massive weight off my shoulders. It provided a welcome framework for a conversation of the sort I don’t think I’ve ever had before with a UK paediatrician (and he focused as much on asking the children questions as he did on asking me). Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but it is hugely refreshing to have found a doctor who is as experienced, competent and caring in cases of a child’s sickness (of which we’ve had our fair share) as one so clearly committed to educating for, and promoting, a child’s health and wellbeing. I am most grateful that Dr Müller brings the best of this European model of paediatric care to the UK, and combines it with his deep NHS frontline experience of acute paediatrics. N&A