History

In 1976, while Dr. Bill Lafleur was finishing his training at Baystate Medical Center (then called Springfield Hospital), he started to look around for a place to start his private practice. He had grown up in the Fairview section of Chicopee, and he decided that home would be a good place to start. He and fellow resident Dr. Thomas McLaughlin found a small building at 1512-C Memorial Drive, and that 900 square foot basement office became the first home of Fairview Pediatrics. It was small, with some of the exam room doorways so low that Dr. Lafleur had to bend down to enter them, and a part-time office staff consisting of their wives, but it was a start.

Gradually their practice grew: six months after opening their practice, they could actually afford to hire their first office nurse. In the fall of 1979, Dr. McLaughlin and his wife moved back to their hometown of Danvers for family reasons. Dr. Bill carried on alone. By 1983, he had outgrown his small basement office, and moved into space in the old Westover Motel at 591 James Street. Three of the former hotel rooms were converted into his new office, and Dr. Bill moved into what he felt was an office so big he would never outgrow it.

In 1985, Dr. Ruby Chang started to work part-time for Dr. Lafleur. In 1989 She became his partner in the "office too big to outgrow," and they expanded their office space by almost double. Only one year later, they added a third doctor, Dr. Shereen Palmer, and their office expanded yet again. In later years Dr. Palmer decided to leave the practice, and Dr. Virginia Rittner joined the practice.

In June 2000, Fairview Pediatrics moved into its current location, a brand new medical office building at 1176 Memorial Drive. The office too big to outgrow had finally been outgrown. Dr. Lafleur had his new office built to his specifications, and spent many lunch hours proudly bringing his staff over to the construction site to watch the progress as their new space took shape.

Dr. James Bell joined Fairview Pediatrics in July 2000, two weeks after moving into our new office. In June 2005, Dr. Lafleur retired and moved to Vermont, where he and his wife built their dream retirement home. Dr. Jennifer Todd joined the practice soon after. When Dr. Rittner left the practice, Dr. Lucas Henderson joined us, and stayed until he and his family moved back home to Colorado in 2007. Dr. Amy Pelletier joined us in July 2009.

We were sad to see two of our providers, Dr. Jennifer Todd and Dr. Ruby Chang, leave our practice in 2011 to pursue different career paths. While they can never be replaced, we were very happy to have Daniel Reilly PA-C and Hanna Awkal MD added to our provider staff at that time. Mary Elizabeth Andaloro CPNP joined our provider staff in March 2012. Daniel Reilly PA-C left our practice in 2013 to resume his career in emergency medicine. We are happy to announce that our newest provider, Dr. Thomas Wadzinski MD PhD, joined our practice in July 2014.

Thirty-six years later, Fairview Pediatrics is much larger than the small basement office where Dr. Lafleur started this practice. The future will surely bring more changes, and more growth, but we have remained a small office in order to maintain the same level of personalized care for our patients. Our physicians and staff enjoy being a part of our patients’ lives and appreciate the trust that our patients and their parents have placed in our physicians and staff. Keeping that trust will always be our goal here at Fairview Pediatrics.