For Dr. Rita Dubey (pronounced “Doo-bay”), the best part of being a pediatrician is not just that she gets to care for sick children or advise families about how to help keep their kids healthy — although she says she loves that part of her job. The best part, she says, is watching them metamorphose from newborn infants to toddlers to teens and beyond.
“The best part of pediatrics is the evolution that we see,” says Dr. Dubey, who is the owner and sole physician at New Tampa Pediatrics and Adolescent Care located the Seven Oaks Professional Park (west of Sam’s Club), off S.R. 56. “It’s so interesting to see the patients blossom and grow, their development and growth.”
Dr. Dubey has practiced medicine for more than three decades. She received her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, equivalent to the MD) degree from Mumbai University in Mumbai, India, in 1982.
She completed her residency in pediatrics at the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, TN, in 1991, and practiced at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville until she moved to Tampa in January 1999.
After moving here, she worked for the Health Point Pediatric Group in Tampa and the Pediatric Health Care Alliance in Riverview before deciding to set up her own practice.
With two young children who were then ages 4 and 7 and attending local schools, Dr. Dubey and her husband Rajiv (who is the chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida) settled in Tampa Palms. Taking measure of the rapid growth north of where they lived, Dr. Dubey decided to open her own practice in Wesley Chapel in October 2006.
Over the past decade, she has seen patients from newborns upwards — “Once they leave home, they leave me!,” she says — and her services run the gamut of traditional pediatric care.
Dr. Dubey says she often “meets” a patient when they are still in utero and the parent comes by for a visit to see if this is the office they want for their family. Once the baby becomes a patient, Dr. Dubey carries out the gamut of periodic well care visits based on the timeline set by the American Association of Pediatrics. She checks growth and development, making sure the children meet their milestones, and offers counseling, behavior, safety and well-care visits.
Patients also can get sports physicals, as well as school and camp physicals.
Because Dr. Dubey is the only physician on staff, she sees all of the patients herself and knows all of their families and their concerns personally. She is almost always able to see patients the same day they call because the office keeps half the day open to see sick children and the other half for well care and physicals. Basic lab tests also are performed at the office.
For Wesley Chapel resident Liz Crew, New Tampa Pediatric & Adolescent Care was worth the drive from Brooksville, where she lived at the time when her older daughter, now 10, was born.
That daughter was Dr. Dubey’s third Crew family patient. She says he two younger daughters (now ages 4 and 7) have been Dr. Dubey’s patients all along.
Crew also has referred other friends and family members to the practice.
“We really love the practice,” says Crew. “We love Dr. Dubey. The staff is always courteous and on top of things. There’s never been a time that I’ve made an after-hour call and not received a call back. Dr. Dubey is very personable and likes to know what’s going on in life, in school and with extra-curricular activities. She recognizes if kids are apprehensive and has a good bedside manner.”
Dr. Dubey says she believes medicine was a natural fit for her after she became interested in the sciences as a teen. Once she started medical school, she says she was drawn to pediatrics because of the positive impacts she could have on young lives.
She says she also loves the fact that the follow-through is so much better with children than with adults, noting that while grownups will frequently disregard doctors’ advice about health and habits, when it comes to their children, they are so careful and will go the extra mile for their health.
Keeping Up With Trends
Having been in practice so long, Dr. Dubey is ideally positioned to observe trends in children’s health. One is the issue of childhood obesity, the rise of which she has certainly noted.
“With every other child, we have to talk about weight management,” she says.
So many children suffer from being anywhere from mildly overweight to obese that a regular part of Dr. Dubey’s practice has become to find resources to get children back into good health with healthy food and proper exercise.
She says that moving away from a sedentary lifestyle and eating so many processed foods are the keys to curbing the increase in early onset diabetes and high cholesterol in so many children.
“Another disturbing trend is the practice of questioning immunizations,” says Dr. Dubey. Over the past decade, she has had an increase of parents coming to her concerned about information they have gathered from the internet about the dangers of immunization, Widely publicized — and yet, thoroughly discredited studies — linking vaccinations to autism are one reason for parents refusing vaccinations. Other reasons include a belief that vaccination schedules are the result of drug companies pushing for profits, or fear mongering from the medical community.
Dr. Dubey tells parents that the vaccinations prevent illnesses that have caused devastation in the past, and she is worried about pockets of illnesses now breaking out when people refuse to vaccinate their kids.
Anxiety amongst teens is another issue commonly in the news, and Dr. Dubey says it has always been there, but parents are acknowledging and addressing it more nowadays. She says parents also are more aware, informed and wary about overmedicating children. The overuse of antibiotics and resulting resistance is an issue with which many parents have become familiar. She adds that today’s parents are more amenable to suggestions to observe their children and give nature a chance. If problems persists, they are encouraged to bring the child back.
New Tampa Pediatric & Adolescent Care is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., but Dr. Dubey also takes after-hours calls. The office accepts most private insurance plans, as well as Medicaid.
“We strive to provide competent and compassionate care,” says Dr. Dubey. “Our staff knows that our patients come first.”
New Tampa Pediatric & Adolescent Care is located at 2236 Ashley Oaks Cir. in Wesley Chapel. For more information, see the ad on page 42 of our current issue or, to make an appointment, call 973-2500.
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