Pediatrician’s hat a day keeps young patient’s fears away

Ask pediatrician Dr. Kim Fehlis about her collection of themed hats and she’ll tell you the story of a 5-year-old patient who was terrified of doctors.

“I don’t want to go to the doctor,” he kept repeating in a trembling voice as he came into the exam room.

Have no fear! It was National Pirates Day.

“After the nurse had settled the patient, I came in,” Fehlis said. “He looked at my sword, we looked at my stethoscope, I did his whole exam, and he was fine, the whole time. As I went to leave, I had my hand on the doorknob, and he asks, ‘Is the doctor coming now?’”

That’s the goal of the garish getups.

“He wasn’t afraid of me the entire time,” Fehlis said. “He didn’t even know I was his doctor, and I was doing doctor things.”

Fehlis has worked with Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Marble Falls for the past 10 years, ever since graduating from medical school at Texas A&M College of Medicine-Scott & White Program in Temple in 2012.

To the delight of her young patients, she dons whimsical hats, often matching her shirt, socks, and sometimes shoes to whatever special day she’s marking on the calendar. Along with well-known holidays like Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Halloween, Fehlis also commemorates National Ice Cream Day, Dinosaur Day, Pizza Day, and more.

“I’ve always liked hats, but when you realize how it can distract a kid away from their fear at the doctor’s office, then it gives it a whole new life,” Fehlis said.

Fehlis collects hats from thrift stores and garage sales and has received quite a few as gifts. She was known for her hats at her Round Rock high school. In college, she wore a hat to school every Monday because Mondays were “kind of dull” and needed a little livening up, she said. That tradition carried on through the first part of med school.

“Once we started seeing patients, though, we had to look like a doctor,” she said. 

So she hung up her hats—at least for a while.

As a child, Fehlis was fascinated by hospital scenes in movies. By the time she was in the second grade, she was applying pretend casts to arms and legs and playing on crutches with her friends.

Being a pediatrician involves more than diagnosing and treating medical problems, especially with children. Fehlis has learned to communicate effectively with the kids she treats and their parents, grandparents, and other siblings, something else she came to early in life.

“When babysitting (as a teen), I liked talking to the parents about their kids, and so it’s just so very natural that, now, I like being able to talk to parents and mostly reassure them,” Fehlis said. “Eighty percent of my job is just calming parent anxiety and telling them that their child is normal and it’s going to be OK.”

In addition to her weekly office hours at 706 Avenue G in Marble Falls, Fehlis serves as an on-call pediatrician at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Marble Falls. She attends to impromptu deliveries and is available to care for newborns on the weekends and evenings.

“I take calls to see the babies in the hospital, and it’s wonderful,” she said.

Fehlis said children should see a primary care physician at least once a year for a physical exam, a review of their medical history and vaccinations, and recommendations for their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

“Parents can talk about the little things that they’ve noticed throughout the year, that maybe aren’t important enough to make a whole appointment about,” Fehlis said. “And there are things that doctors find that parents may not have noticed. Having fresh eyes that are devoted to your child are a worthwhile thing.”

Fehlis carries her care beyond the exam room. She enjoys attending patients’ school events, including seeing 20 of her youngsters in a play last spring at Reclaim Arts Academy in Marble Falls.

“I feel like I am, hopefully, making a difference in those families’ lives,” she said. “Often, something clicks into place when a parent understands what’s going on with a child to determine their future, and I like that moment a lot.”

Fehlis wears many different kinds of metaphorical hats outside of her medical job. She performs weekly in the choir at First Baptist Church of Marble Falls, participates in the handbell choir, and has acted in a couple of plays with Hill Country Community Theatre. She hosts volleyball once a week at the church and enjoys hiking and being on the lake.

She offers all of her parents this sage advice.

“Parents sometimes don’t believe that they’re doing a great job, and they are,” Fehlis said. “Trust your parent instincts, because you know your kid and you can tell when something is not right.”

The best thing about her job, she continued, is that people can tell she genuinely connects with the kids and wants to prevent illness.

Now that’s the right hat-ittude!

editor@thepicayune.com