Erin Kathleen Kelleher, MD

I WOULD NOT GO NEAR DR. KELLEHER**** after letting my daughter be this dr's patient i decided to switch to another doctor because kelleher totally disregarded my daughter's mental and emotional state of mind. no big deal, right? WRONG! kelleher refused to forward my daughter's medical records to new doctor. what a jerky move! i called her office (and medical records dept) 4 times. they won't even tell me why they aren't forwarding the records. WHAT IF MY DAUGHTER GETS SICK TOMORROW? WHO IS SHE SUPPOSED TO SEE??? there are so many other doctor's in the area, why would you even take the chance with this one? ZERO STARS, THUMBS DOWN AND A NYS DEPT OF HEALTH COMPLAINT FOR KELLEHER

I know that creating your “no tolerance” office-wide vaccine policy was not easy or came without soul-searching. It is my opinion, however, that your policy to exclude the vaccine-hesitant families from your office is failing in both evidence and ethical ground. The policy falsely promotes safety to your current patients and it threatens to weaken the health of the community. The claim that your vaccine policy increases safety for families is not founded in evidence, and falsely promotes security. You may feel that your policy is helping your patients. Anecdotally, you may even experience more families vaccinating under your “guidance”. The challenge, however, is that you should consider the need for scientific evidence to make medical decisions; not feelings or anecdote. To date, there is no evidence that a medical practice vaccine policy increases patient safety within a medical office. Claiming otherwise misrepresents true infectious risk to your patients, while falsely promoting… increased security. The daily reality, even under the most stringent restrictions, is that you all have under-vaccinated children in your offices every day; notably all children under the age of 1. In addition, some vaccinated children have an imperfect response to the vaccine and leave themselves at risk, as it happened with our child. More practically, ill parents bring children into your clinics every day without you demanding their adult vaccine records. As you may know, in recent outbreaks, adults are often the primary vector spreading illness to children, not the other way around. This is not just about your waiting room. It’s about your city. By shutting your doors to the vaccine-questioning parents, and if more practices follow your lead, our community could develop a greater risk of disease. Today we have felt the sting of rejection when our efforts to get our child well being evaluated by a professional have fallen short. And meeting that rejection with an ultimatum, did not help my child that went to you for a wellness care. And it does not help your community or it does not serve the mission in which you were called to serve as pediatrician. It benefits no one. Please, next time allow more time for discussion and dialog throughout the appointments to build trust and reliance in those of us that are a vaccine-questioning parents and just want the well being and are concerning for our child health. Sincerely, Gonzales Family