A LETTER FROM OUR FOUNDER
The Practice I Wanted for My Own Children
A letter from Dr. Nneka Unachukwu — “Dr. Una” — founder of Ivy League Pediatrics
I have held a lot of four-day-old babies.
They arrive a few ounces lighter than they left the hospital, in the arms of a mother who has not slept, and half of what happens in that appointment is really for her.
Some of those babies are eighteen now. Taller than their mothers, finished with us, off to whatever is next.
Everything I believe about this work sits in the space between those two appointments — and it is why I built this practice the way I did.
What I wanted this place to be
Sixteen years ago I wanted somewhere kids and their parents didn't feel like a number.
Somewhere so warm that the people working there felt like the aunties and uncles and cousins who just happened to be in health care. Where you got expert medical care built on the best science and training available — and got it without waiting all morning for it. Where the visit was a good experience even when it involved shots, even when your child was sick.
And where parents got true partners. You don't have to be confident about every part of your child's health. You have to be confident that you plus us can take great care of your child. That's the feeling I was after, and it's still the one I measure this place against.
I wanted it for my team, too — supported enough to enjoy doing the thing they're good at, which is taking care of children at the highest level.
And I wanted all eighteen years of it, not one appointment at a time. When you have a child that long, a visit stops being a transaction. Every well check and every sick visit becomes a chance to ask a kid about her grades, or what she's reading, or to have the harder conversation — to build habits around food and movement and screens while they are still forming, so nobody has to work all that out from scratch at thirty.
You cannot do that in one appointment. You can do it in eighteen years.
A note about me
I'm not the one in the exam room anymore, and I'd rather say that here than have you work it out at a front desk.
I have four children. I spent all those years in medical school and training, and what I wanted to give my own kids was a legacy — everything a traditional education offers, plus the things I most wanted to hand them myself: business, leadership, character, and faith. Character is the only thing that keeps you standing when you rise. The way to do that was to homeschool them.
I was torn about it for a long time. I absolutely love my patients, and I'm not saying that to be gracious — it's the reason this took as long as it did.
So I didn't leave. I built.
I took the philosophies this practice was built on and spent five years turning them into something that would run exactly the same way without me standing in it. That meant hiring the right physicians and the right support team. Building the systems that make same-day sick visits and short waits happen on an ordinary Tuesday and not just on a good week. Stress-testing those systems, finding what broke, fixing it, and testing again — every single time. And negotiating well enough with our vendors to keep this practice profitable, because a profitable independent practice is one that gets to stay independent.
It took five years. I was so proud the day it was finished.
Who takes care of your child now
When I went looking for the people who would carry this, I wanted three things and I wouldn't compromise on any of them. People who truly care about kids. People who are deeply knowledgeable about taking care of them. And people who wanted to build the same thing I did — a place where parents get partners, not instructions.
Dr. Maria Soto, Dr. Jeffrey Lim and Chelsea Young are each different from one another, and each of them is remarkable.
Dr. Soto is a straight shooter — she'll tell you plainly what she thinks, and she'll chase a symptom until she's found the root of it. Dr. Lim is personable in a way children notice; his patients ask to come back to him. Chelsea has been with us since 2018 and has a following of families who ask for her by name.
And the simplest thing I can tell you is this: my own children are their patients.
What I hold it to
Expert medical care. Unparalleled customer service. Run well enough to stay independent. That is the whole of what this practice is supposed to be, and it has not changed since 2010.
So I still look, every week. Not over anyone's shoulder — Dr. Soto, Dr. Lim and Chelsea make the medical decisions and they do not need me for that. But there are three things I check, and I have checked them every week for years.
Whether your child is getting expert medical care.
Whether this place still feels warm when you walk through the door.
And how long the whole thing takes you, start to finish.
Those three things are what this practice was built on, and they are the first three that slip anywhere when nobody is watching them.
Sixteen years in, we are still independently owned. That isn't an accident and it isn't sentimentality — it's the reason we still get to decide for ourselves how long you wait, how long a visit takes, and who works here.
Eighteen is also the age our patients graduate out of this practice.
My oldest is eighteen now, graduating with her bachelor's degree in business administration. I built a place that raises children to eighteen and then sends them off ready for the rest of it. I stepped back so I could do the same thing at home.
Ivy League Pediatrics was never meant to be one doctor. It was meant to be that place — and it still is.
— Dr. Una