Dr. Paulina Avendano, Pediatrics

Dr. Paulina Avendano was born in Chile to a multi-generational family of physicians. Also fluent in Spanish and French, she spent her childhood in Santiago, Chile; Montreal, Canada and Fountain Valley, California.

Dr. Avendano completed her undergraduate studies at UC Irvine. After attending Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, she returned to the Southern California area for post-graduate training in general pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center located in Torrance.

Following residency, which she completed in 1995, she worked as a hospitalist at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, at Kaiser in Orange County and later joined a general pediatric group in San Pedro where she worked until the family relocated to South Orange County in 2003. She also works per diem at Kids Doc in Mission Viejo since 2004.

“What I enjoy most about pediatrics is interacting with children and families. A lot of pediatrician’s time is spent on teaching, and I take this role seriously. I enjoy helping parents understand their child’s symptoms or illness and also making parents aware of the importance of things like immunizing and breastfeeding. I also aim to make the child and parent laugh or at least smile by the end of the visit.”