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One of San Diego’s strongest proponents of patient education and preventative medicine, Dr. Whitney Carr Edwards is a firm believer in being as approachable to children as possible, and is on a first-name basis with many of her patients and their families. “I don’t need the formal distance of always being addressed as ‘Doctor.’ People trust me with the care of their children. How could the use of a title possibly convey more respect than that?” Far more likely to be dressed in jeans and a rugby shirt than more formally, Dr. Edwards’ deliberate choice of apparel is intended to put children at ease. “To adults, white coats may symbolize professionalism, but kids just associate them with needles.  I have been known to wear one on Halloween, which my patients find extremely funny.” Dr. Edwards attended Amherst College and the Medical College of Ohio.  She completed her pediatric training at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, before moving to San Diego in 1997, where she’s been in private practice ever since.  She is Medical Co-Director and oversees the Healthy Living Weight Management Program at Children’s HealthCare Medical Associates in Hillcrest.  She holds a voluntary faculty appointment at UCSD and has been very active in the training of pediatric residents since 1999. Dr. Edwards’ local roots and family ties are deep and broad.  She’s the daughter of a third-generation San Diegan (and granddaughter of a longtime principal at San Diego High) and has a large local contingent of family.  A “Navy brat,” she was born at Sangley Point in the Phillipines and spent time in San Diego before moving to Columbus, Ohio, where she grew up on a small farm outside of town. She was an animal trainer at the Columbus Zoo for many years before entering medical school, and has served as a medical consultant to several movie productions and television series, including The X-Files. She shares her life with Urie and Ianto, two gorgeous, huge, and quirky Shiloh Shepherds, as well as with a beautiful Connemara pony named Hope.  She’s traveled extensively, is a lifelong baseball fan, and loves sailing and especially photography, which barely lost out to medicine as a career. Dr. Edwards, who is Board Certified in Pediatrics and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was selected as one of the top physicians in San Diego by the San Diego County Medical Society in 2011.