Millburn-Short Hills Mag Names Local 'Super Doc'

By  Laura Silvius

Dr. Jennifer Shaw-Brachfeld has the cool, collected voice of an intelligent woman who doesn’t need to be told she’s good at what she does. It’s what she strives for each day, what she dedicates her intellect and passion into.

But just in case she didn’t know, Millburn-Short Hills Magazine gave her a nice reminder earlier this year when they named her one of the “Super doctors” for the Millburn area, an honor given to about five percent of practicing doctors in the region.

Shaw’s reception of the award is matter-of-fact, even humble. “I’ve had a lot of those [types of awards] before,” she said. “What matters most is the word of mouth, what the parents and patients say about us."

Millburn-Short Hills Magazine chooses their “super doctors” by sending out a peer review form to practicing doctors. Among the questions they ask are things like, “If you needed medical care, which doctor would you choose?”

When it came to pediatric medicine, Shaw was one of the doctors other doctors trust the most.

“To be the pediatrician that other doctors would go to for their children is, to me, pretty significant,” Shaw said. “This is what differentiates them [the magazine's list] from other lists.”

A Chatham resident, Shaw opened her practice in Short Hills in 1995 and moved to her current office on Watchung Avenue in Chatham in 2002. Before that she was the director of the Child Development Center at the Hunterdon Medical Center.

Shaw and her husband Barrie Brachfeld both work at Touchpoint (Brachfeld is the CFO) along with three other doctors (all four pictured in a group shot attached t this article) and a handful of support staff. Together they try to promote what Shaw calls “integrated comprehensive pediatric care,” and the first step to that is leaving lots of room in the schedule for face-to-face time with the patients.

“The Star-Ledger says the average is five to ten minutes of time with your doctor,” Shaw said. “Here you get 30 minutes of face-to-face doctor time.”

Touchpoint doctors watch their young patients interact with their parents, with the new surrounding of the doctor’s office, with toys and with books to help measure their progress. Then they offer parents benchmarks in “wellness, nutrition, sleep, cognitive development, all sorts of things to expect before we see you again.”

The results are two-fold: First, in the informed and attentive medical care to children and parents, and second, in “the special relationship they develop with us,” Shaw said.  “We are your child’s medical home. … [The] communication and education with every family member is an important way of how we approach each patient.”