Our Story at Parker Place
Parker Place is the culmination of Dr. Elizabeth Parker’s many years spent working with children to help them reach a healthy place in their lives. Throughout Dr. Parker's medical career, she realized that, while many of her patients’ medical issues could be managed or even resolved by healthy lifestyle changes, the limitations of the medical system in which she worked simply wouldn’t allow her to provide the additional guidance and followup she felt her patients and their parents deserved. As an advocate for children’s health and wellness, and for the well-being of families, she knew she wanted to approach medicine differently.
Dr. Parker decided to launch a new type of medical practice where she would have time not only to treat her patients’ medical issues, but to actively help patients and their families to make positive changes in their nutrition, exercise, and sleep habits. This, she believes, will not only create immediate improvements in their medical conditions, but will ultimately have the greatest long-term impact on their overall health. By educating and empowering children and parents or caregivers to make informed choices and take control of their health, she is providing them with tools that will benefit them throughout their lives.
Parker Place’s grand opening, July 2018
Parker Place, A Children's Health and Wellness Center, opened its doors in July of 2018, welcoming patients who currently struggle with, or are at risk for, endocrine disorders of all types. Our practice also serves aa a resource for children and adolescents struggling with weight management and related health conditions. An essential part of Parker Place's model of care is that our providers spend time with each patient and their parent or caregiver to understand their current daily routines as well as their medical problems, and provide curated wellness resources and ongoing support to help them succeed in improving their health. Our team has found that involving the whole family in making changes is absolutely essential to ensuring those changes become a regular part of their lives.
The medical practice, however, is only one part of Parker Place. In addition to their unique, lifestyle-focused approach to patient care, our providers also believe that pediatricians are responsible for preventing disease and nurturing health for all children, including those not currently experiencing any medical issues. For this reason, we aim to support all families in raising healthy children and adolescents and in adopting healthy habits for a lifetime.
In 2020, Parker Place introduced a new service to help children, teenagers, parents and families: individual and group counseling with Kimberley Palmiotto, LCPC, Psy.D. Dr. Palmiotto brings a compassionate model of positive psychology to her work here at Parker Place, and strives to help kids and families to manage their stress, identify their strengths and weaknesses, improve their communication, and achieve happier, healthier lives.
Our range of services expanded even further in 2021, with the addition of speech-language assessments and therapy with Alicia Bell, CCC-SLP. Alicia’s ability to provide individualized attention in the fun, cheerful environment here at Parker Place enables her to maximize kids’ speech progress. Also in 2021, we began offering developmental behavioral pediatrics with Myra Cleary, DNP, CPNP, PMHS. Dr. Cleary provides assessments and follow-up care for children with suspected or diagnosed developmental delays, disabilities, learning difficulties, and behavior challenges, as well as evaluations and medication management for ADHD.
Over the past several years, we have been fortunate to host a number of occupational therapy graduate and doctoral students, who completed their capstone projects by working with and creating resources for our patients. In 2023, occupational therapy became an “official” part of Parker Place’s roster of services, with Kara Hoegerl, OTR/L joining our team.
To learn more about the Parker Place team, please click here. You can also read more about our medical practice, or explore our frequently asked questions. Of course, we also invite you to contact us anytime with questions or to become more involved with Parker Place!
“Parker Place is amazing! From the moment we walked in, we were met with kindness. Jennifer is awesome and so sweet! Dr. Parker was so down to earth and awesome as well! They really listened to my daughter and made her feel comfortable. The help she received after only one visit was outstanding. We went home very hopeful that she will be well taken care of here. It was so worth the drive to Parker Place. I look forward to seeing them again and to the progress my daughter will be making. Thank you so much Dr. Parker and Jennifer!”