Doctor Busse has been with me and my kids since birth, and I hope seems with them through high school. We love every appointment, she's even made arrangements for both of my kids to be seen together when the younger one was nervous. PAMF has always been fabulous, and Dr. Busse is amazing. read more

I can't recommend Dr. Busse enough! After two months of run around from a family doctor in the area, I took my daughter to Dr. Busse for a second opinion. In a matter of DAYS, she had gotten us in with the specialists we needed to see. Within two weeks we had a diagnosis and are currently working on a plan of action for dealing with my daughter's condition. Throughout the process she has been supportive and dealt with issues and questions quickly and thoroughly. She's a good communicator and has been vital in organizing all the information coming from the various specialists. To top it off, she's great with the kids, down-to-earth, and friendly! read more

My wife and I met Dr. Busse at the birthing center shortly after the birth of our daughter. We liked her friendly, youthful manner and appreciated the fact that she was a vegan. Unfortunately, her alternative lifestyle choices did not translate into her practice, especially in her approach to vaccines. Although she initially said that she'd be happy to accommodate an alternative schedule, she seemed annoyed when we turned down the first batch of shots, implying that we were ignoramuses rather than simply cautious parents wanting more information. Her stance on the matter of vaccines is perfectly understandable, but her condescension was not welcome. That said, our main complaint is actually with Dr. Busse's staff at the Palo Alto medical center on Soquel Ave. On two separate occasions, we received a "courtesy" phone call mere minutes before our daughter's appointment and were told that we could not be seen that day due to a problem with the insurance. When we expressed disappointment at how this was handled, we were met with rudeness rather than apologies. On another occasion, we were running 10 minutes late to an appointment due to an extended baby nap, so we called while on the way and were told that we could only be seen if we arrived within 5 minutes. We sped through traffic and managed to get through the door exactly 7 minutes later, baby in arms, only to be told that we had to reschedule. In short, Dr. Busse and especially her team are not nearly as warm or personable as one would hope for with early pediatric care. read more

Dr. Busse is wonderful in every single way and I can not recommend her more highly! I am shocked to see some of these reviews, totally unbelievable. Dr. Busse has been caring for our child since day one and has been been nothing but amazing. She is a sweet and kind person who our daughter gravitated towards immediately, she listens to our concerns and explains the scientific rationale for her all her recommendations (which is a must for us). OK, Dr Busse is the first and only pediatrician we have ever know, but we can not recommend her any more than we do. Really. read more

My daughter's medical device broke (an insulin pump) as well as her insulin pen--the perfect storm. I called PAMF and Dr Busse asking for a prescription for a new pen. My daughter cannot live without insulin. Dr Busse, our new doctor who agreed to be supportive of us in an emergency since there is no pediatric endocrinologist in Santa Cruz County, refused to write the prescription despite the situation being quite urgent and highly unusual (it had never happened before in 8 years). Dr Busse would not return my phone call. Shockingly, she just refused the prescription for the pen and had her nurse tell us to track down our doctor in Palo Alto. read more

Dr. Busse is well loved and admired in our family. My 2 year old runs around the house saying 'Dr Busse, Dr Busse' and I imagine our daughter will too when she can talk. There's a true peace when you have a Doctor that you can trust, and I trust her. She has seen both of my kids since they were hours old and has fully listened to my concerns and assessed them thoroughly. I love how she explains things, and has eased my anxiety when at times something is going on. When I think the visit is over she asks 'what else?, and amazingly I've never left thinking I forgot something. I feel like I'm able to get an appointment with ease, and she answers her emails timely. She is warm and welcoming, listens, and is smart! It's a blessing to have a knowledgeable trustworthy Doctor, I look forward to my kids growing up with the same Doctor just as I did. I highly recommend her! read more

So happy to find a doctor to help us out! We were traveling recently and needed to find a pediatrician quickly to help my daughter, and Dr. Busse was so helpful and caring when she met us. It's so hard to find people who you trust, and I thought it was so sweet of her to follow up with us a week later to see how things were going with the antibiotics. Great clinic, great people, great doctor! read more

One star seems like too high a rating for this doctor. First and foremost she is completely lacking in a bedside manner. Second, she can't see beyond the charts. My daughter was 6 1/2 weeks premature and spent 44 days in the NICU at Dominican. Once released her first appointment with Dr. Busse went "ok." She said she lost a little weight, but that was to be expected. The next week she didn't like her weight gain and said she wanted to wait another week and then possibley change her formula mix up. Week three she wanted to put in immediately back into the NICU. Never once did she tell us that she had diagnosed my daughter as Failure to Thrive (FTT). This was something I had to read online when checking my daughters chart. Dr. Busse was never even what I would call nice and acted like we weren't feeding our daughter right because we didn't want a fat baby. No true at all and never even discussed. Since I had read her chart online I had done a great deal of research on the matter, so I told her I wanted a second opinion from Stanford on putting her back in the NICU. She didn't want to and was making excuses not to give me a referral to Stanford. When we demanded the referral she acted like we couldn't leave until she set up the appointment because she was afraid we weren't going to do it ourselves. Once we got to Stanford and discussed my daughters development vs weight gain, and our concerns about constipation (something we spoke to Dr. Busse about every appointment) we found out that she was either not paying attention or a liar. She told the Stanford team that we never mentioned constipation was a concern and went so far as to alude the fact that she cared more about our daughter than we did. That was over 2 months ago. We have changed primaries. Standford follows our daughter through weekly phone calls. She is developing nicely according to Stanford and our Occupational Therapist and has STILL NOT been admitted to the NICU for tube feeding or further testing. I would highly recommend finding another physician for your child. read more

We love Dr. Busse. She is calm and reassuring and funny, and works with us to provide the best care for our son. We saw some other pediatricians while Dr. Busse was on maternity leave, but we are so glad that she's back! Dr. Busse always explains to us why she's making any particular recommendation and she is great at answering questions. This is not true of other pediatricians who we have seen. She also knows a lot about nutrition, which is a great quality for a pediatrician to have. She also has young children herself, so can relate to what new parents are going through. I, like the other reviewers, am shocked at some of the negative reviews, so just wanted to throw in my opinion. read more

I cannot say enough about how great Dr. Busse has been for our family--she's seen my kids from childhood into their adolescence, through our ups and downs, and has always been there with great advice and patience. She is the only MD my daughters trust, so much so now that they are adolescents, my oldest makes her own appts. with Dr. Busse, and i am very comfortable with her doing so, as I trust that Dr. Busse will offer the best care and advice possible whether I am at the visit or not. I love her sense of humor, which puts us at ease and makes me feel like she is not judging my parenting, that she knows i am doing the best I can. read more

Dr. Busse is an amazing, compassionate, patient, pediatrician. She has been our pediatrician since my daughters were preschoolers and they just adore her. Her medical sense is amazing and both my daughters, noq teenagers, see her on their own--I couldn't wish for a better advocate for both my girls, who are ethnic minorities. She has routinely referred them to specialists, got them emergency medical appointments in Santa Cruz and Stanford, and patiently explained to me my daughters many medical challenges. We trust her completely. My kids worry about whether she can remain their pediatrician when they transition to adulthood. read more

Our family can't say enough good things about Dr.Busse. She recently cared for our 3 week old son while he was admitted in the NICU for 5 nights. She was kind, compassionate, professional, caring and took amazing care of our son. She always thought about what was best for him and myself who never left the hospital during his stay, she always made sure I had the support I needed too. She kept in great contact with my husband and I, always discussing the plan of care and asking about our concerns about our sons return home. Her bedside manor was kind and gentle and she always listened to us. She is a great physician and an asset to our community. She met and exceeded all of expectations as our physician. If you are looking for a great pediatrician please consider her, she will not let you down. I am shocked and saddened to see poor reviews of her as it does not paint an accurate picture of her and our experience. We could not thank her enough for making such a hard admission tolerable. Hats off to her! read more

Dr. Busse does not know how to deal with out of the ordinary situations, lacks good judgement and made very! bad medical decisions that cost my 10 day old baby a lot of pain and possible trauma. It seems like she only looked at the charts and a list of things in the computer telling her what to do instead of looking at the patient and thinking clearly. My 10 day old baby had an eye infection with some discharge so we took him to the doctor. Our regular pediatrician was not there so we got stuck with Dr. Busse. From the beginning she started making bad decisions. She looked my baby's eye and said it looked pretty bad (obviously she had no experience with this, because a few hours later we saw an ophthalmologist and thought completely the opposite). That was her first mistake, we should have seen the ophthalmologist first before she made any decisions. Anyway, her first response was to say that my baby could've gotten gonorrhea or chlamydia through the birth canal. How is that even possible if I (the mother) do NOT have any of that, 100% sure, and even I told her many times, she was not thinking straight. She wanted to give my baby a shot of a very strong antibiotic that is not recommended at all! for newborns, so we refused until we knew a better idea of what the baby possibly had. So she ordered an eye swap and a blood culture! (from an eye infection!, no one orders blood cultures and we've asked many doctors around, including at Stanford Lucile Packard Children's Hospital). In the mean time she kept telling us how this could be very bad for our baby, scaring us, and obviously when they scare you like that you can't think straight. So, we went back home, but a couple of hours later she tricked us into going back to give him that shot. She said that preliminary results from the eye cultured had shown a bacteria from the same group of the chlamydia bacteria (there could be hundreds of bacteria classified in that same group, so that wasn't a good criteria) and kept scaring us about how bad could that be for our baby. She said we would see an ophthalmologist first when we got there. So we went back there and they said we would see Dr. Busse first, and she gave my baby the NOT recommended antibiotic shot (Very bad decision) and after she sent us with the ophthalmologist who told us the eye didn't look bad, but she had already given him the shot! Anyway, we went back home with a list of all medications we had to give our son. The next day Dr. Busse calls us again saying that preliminary results from the blood culture showed bacteria growth, that it was a different kind from the eye culture and she thought the blood sample got contaminated in the lab, that she didn't trust the results. But anyway because the blood culture showed bacterial growth (even if it was not real and was contamination) we had to get our baby treated (because of a mistake and an overreaction of Dr. Busse to get a blood culture!). In all this my baby never show any symptoms of sickness, not fever, fussiness, nothing! But we had to go that same night to the NICU at Lucile Packard's Children's hospital to get him started on a massive dosage of different antibiotics, possibly for no reason. Dr. Busse said that at the hospital they would do another blood test to confirm if it was contamination or not, but her overreaction and lack of professional judgement, because she had given him that antibiotic shot earlier made that not possible. Of course at the NICU they told us that because of those antibiotics administered earlier it was now impossible to know if there had been something there or not, so we had to go ahead with the treatment. This meant 15 days of anibiotics in my 10 day old baby, administered IV, lots of pain and poking him as the IV line does not last more that 2 or 3 days, at some point my baby had no more veins they could poke and they just kept poking around not being able to get the vein (one day he got poked 7 times!!!). He had to be connected to all these heart monitor and O2 monitor, etc, so I couldn't even nurse without all these cables getting in the way. My husband and I had no place to sleep and I was nursing every 2 hours, we were exhausted! and had another 3 year old child at home. My baby kept being waken up all the time with all the nurse shifts to check on his vitals, not much rest for him either on top of all the poking! This was the worst thing my husband and I had ever experienced and my baby suffered a lot. And all for a very bad judgement and lack of professional medical thinking. My baby never show symptoms of any sickness at all!! but they had to go "by the book"...his eye infection got away after 2 days, and on top of the physical and mental pain we went through, the whole thing cost more than $200,000 dls!! and we are still getting bills in the mail! So seeing Dr. Busse was the worst thing that ever happened to us and I ABSOLUTELY DON'T RECOMMEND HER TO ANYONE! She needs way more experience and good judgement! read more

This pediatrician told me that because I was having emotional issues and behavioral issues with my daughter that it was my own fault because I wasn't disciplining her. She told me that in no way was I doing the right thing by my child by seeing if maybe her behavioral troubles would go away with food changes or a different parenting style. She wrote in my file that i wasn't a good parent. I know this because my other doctor saw it when I switched back to her as quickly as possible. She then proceeded to tell one of my family members all about my appointment with her. LOVELY patient confidentiality. I would NEVER recommend someone like her! read more