New pediatrician joins Skiff Medical Center

Skiff Medical Center has a new doctor who is filling a much needed position. Dr. Jennifer Paisley is the new and only pediatrician at Skiff and is also an internal medicine doctor.

“I really, really liked it (pediatrics) when I did my rotations at Blank Children’s Hospital when I was a student and there was an opportunity to do a combined residency with internal medicine and pediatrics,” Paisley said. “I’m really interested in things like diabetes, thyroid disease and particularly pediatric obesity, that kind of adult diseases are coming down into childhood.”

Originally from Grinnell, Paisley went to the University of Iowa for undergraduate and medical school. When looking at the next step in her education, she found an opportunity to combine the areas she was interested in.

“I really decided I wanted to do a combined residency, so I went down to Kansas City for their combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency,” Paisley said. As she was finishing her schooling in Kansas City, she had an idea of where she wanted to go.

“When it came time to look and figure out what we wanted to do, we knew we wanted to come back home and there was an opportunity to let me be in my home town and work close to home,” Paisley said. “It was a nice opportunity close to home, and let us be closer to my parents and my family so that our 2-year-old could get to know her grandparents a little bit better.”

Paisley will have her outpatient practice at NewCare Health Services in Newton but will be available for consultation or general inpatient care at Skiff. With pediatrics, the age range is generally newborn to age 21 but her internal medicine practice ranges from birth to death. The only thing she said she does not do is deliver babies.

When her residency is complete, Paisley will be board certified in both pediatric and internal medicine. A little different than a family practice doctor, as a pediatrician, Paisley is more focused on children.

“Our training, we do a lot more intensive training in just general behavior and development of children. I have an interest in some of the more complex children. Children with things like cerebral palsy or profound learning or developmental delays that often times may have more needs, that I am used to, that you just don’t necessarily see in as much in a typical family practice residency,” Paisley said. “I’m much more trained in kind of knowing what’s normal and not normal.”

Just beginning her career, Paisley is getting her feet wet in her practice, but she did say that sometime in the future she would consider getting trained in endocrinology.

“I’d like to be able to stay in the same spot, we hate moving, and we are close to home and my parents,” Paisley said.

Contact Staff Writer Jamee A. Pierson at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com.