Chapel Hill Children's Clinic _ Your Child's Health

Chapel Hill Children's Clinic
301 Kildaire Rd., Ste. 200
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Phone: (919) 967-0771
Fax: (919) 967-9207

After-hours Phone:
(888) 267-3675 or
(919) 966-3820

Clinic Hours:
Mon-Fri 9:00am - 4:30pm

Walk-in Hours:
Mon-Fri 7:30am - 9:00am
and 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Sat 9:00am - 11:30am
Sun 1:00pm - 3:00pm

›› Adolescent

Adolescents experience unique physical, emotional, and psychological changes. With their development and maturity come new responsibilities and stresses. Despite their unique health care needs, teenagers often lack resources for dealing with the changes they are confronting.

We at Chapel Hill Children's Clinic are prepared to provide the specialized services our adolescent patients need. We see patients annually up to the age of 21 or whenever the patient decides to switch care to an adult medicine health care provider.

For many, adolescence is a time of growth and development, not illness. Because most adolescents are healthy, we address safety and prevention during routine visits. This is important because teens have high rates of preventable health problems.

The important aspects of the adolescent well check include the following:

Routine annual physicals for camp, sports, and college. Sports physicals identify conditions that could be worsened by sports participation and identify musculoskeletal problems to be rehabilitated before returning to sports.
Monitoring of normal growth patterns and pubertal changes.
Vaccinations. Routine visits provide an opportunity to catch up on lapsed or recently introduced vaccines. These include Hepatitis B, Tetanus booster, a 2nd MMR, and varicella (chickenpox). This is especially important for those diseases, such as chicken pox, which are more severe in older populations.
Screening tests. Well checks include screening for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anemia, and kidney disease.
Assessment of emotional and psychological changes of adolescence.

During visits, we discuss various stresses adolescents face at school, at work or extracurricular activities, and with family and friends. We ask about diet, self-image, and general emotional and mental well-being.

Overall, we provide health guidance to adolescents and parents on growth and development, lifestyles, and injury prevention. It takes time to address the many issues pertinent to adolescent health. We allot thirty minutes for all well checks which allows for thorough care of adolescents' needs. Appointments are easily made and readily available. We hope to care for your adolescents with the compassion and respect they deserve.

Helpful links

Below is a list of links that may be useful in the care and parenting of adolescents: