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OUR PEDIATRICIAN, THE ROCK STAR FOR SOME GUYS, SAVING LIVES JUST ISN'T ENOUGH 
One day, while flipping through an issue of GQ, I did a double take at a photograph that caught my eye. No, it wasn't some airbrushed babe bursting at the seams but a man who looked oddly familiar. Then it hit me. It was Michel Cohen, our family's pediatrician. He is indeed handsome, not overly muscular but obviously fit. French-born, he had moved to the United States with his American wife in the early '90s and set up practice in Tribeca. We met him in '97 at the suggestion of our midwife who thought that he would be a good fit for my French wife who was expecting our first child. He had a laid-back practice where his three children played in the back while rug rats waiting to see him rambled about among the toys out front. We had the feeling that we had stumbled upon a successful experiment in pediatrics; we loved our cool doctor (whose wife is an artist) and the chic crew of downtown parents who brightened up his colorful waiting room. Now he has been discovered.
New York being the media hot zone that it is, one thing led to another. Not too long after the GQ piece appeared, the New York Observer followed suit with one of their typically overwritten, snarky stories, headlined "Gorgeous Michel, Tribeca Doc." Observed the Observer: "He rides a bicycle, makes house calls for newborns, has thick-framed black glasses and dark, tousled hair, favors Comme des Garçons clothes and -- get this -- does not like to prescribe antibiotics unless he deems it absolutely necessary." He also, I noticed, wears his pants really tight, which perhaps gives him some extra leverage with the mothers -- who, as the Observer noted, sit a little "straighter" when he walks into the waiting room. On one visit to his office, we found him examining patients while wearing a wet suit. On his day off, he was helping out before going out to windsurf on Long Island. "You should do a book," I said upon noticing the onslaught of press coverage. "I am," he said. Perfect. A photogenic pediatrician dispensing medical wisdom in an uncomplicated, plainspoken (albeit French-inflected) manner. And lo and behold, here it is: The New Basics: A-to-Z Baby and Child Care for the Modern Parent (Regan Books/HarperCollins) released in January. Known to all as Dr. Michel, our doctor preaches a good-sense approach to child rearing that sometimes exasperates new parents yet leaves them eternally grateful after the fact. A visit to his crowded office during flu season reminded me of how unique he is. As the media droned on hysterically about the fatal flu for which we had no more vaccine, I brought in my 2-year-old with a 104-degree fever. There's nothing to worry about, we were told. There's vaccine, but we're only giving it to kids at risk. And by the looks of it, we were told, our kid would be fine, if not stronger. Part of Dr. Michel's dictum is to allow babies to go through fevers as a means of building immunity. Fine, but try telling that to a parent who's been up all night, tending to their burning baby. Not even Dr. Michel's ubiquitous lollipops can make their tears go away. We loved our cool doctor (whose wife is an artist) and the chic crew of downtown parents who brightened up his colorful Tribeca waiting room. Now he has been discovered. Raising a child means navigating a minefield of differing "expert" opinions ranging from one extreme to the other. Parents tend to depend on their pediatricians for all kinds of advice, giving them more authority than most doctors. Dr. Michel's laissez-faire approach takes a sensible, centrist position that most parents find reassuring: Breast-feeding can be abruptly stopped at 6 months, or it can go on for years ("If you and Jimmy still enjoy it, there's no reason to stop"); and babies can start out in the crib or sleep in the "family bed" long past toddlerhood ("Once you've decided to stop nursing at night, you might have to get Jimmy out of your bed and even put up with a little struggling"). He also dispenses a tough-love approach to fixing poor sleeping habits by asking parents to ignore a fussy, crying child ("Cry yourself to sleep if you have to, but stay the course"). At the same time, when it comes to New Age-isms, the doctor is quick to debunk useless folklore. After running through a list of advice commonly dispensed to breast-feeding mothers -- eat several eggs daily, stop eating refined sugar and flour, and stay away from aluminum -- he goes on to say, "These are examples of the typical nonsense nursing mothers will find on certain Web sites, where various self-appointed experts make it sound like you'll poison the baby if you eat anything more adventurous than wheat germ." Not only have Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly and Sopranos bad boy Michael Imperioli given book-jacket testimonials, Dr. Michel has scaled another media height: His author photo was taken by none other than Annie Leibovitz, the preeminent celebrity/rock photographer -- who also happens to be the mother of a child tended to by our good doctor, the rock star. |
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