New Canaan resident Dr. Jennifer Tauber has been a working mom ever since she became a mother.
Dr. Jennifer Tauber of New Canaan Podiatry. Contributed
A Wilton native, she’d already earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Manhattan College and doctorate of podiatric medicine from New York College of Podiatric Medicine when she married and then moved here 15 years ago.
Tauber completed her residency at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, and after just a few years settled into her second job in podiatry, joining the staff of a small practice in Bethel for a 12-year stint that would help provide a foundation in her chosen field.
Pregnant when she started at Bethel Podiatry, Tauber worked through the births of her two daughters—now fifth- and seventh-graders at Saxe Middle School—reducing her work schedule somewhat for a time, to one day per week, before returning full-time.
Town resident Dr. Jennifer Tauber will open New Canaan Podiatry at 107 Cherry St. in April. Credit: Michael Dinan
Tauber is poised next month to take a major step toward realizing what has emerged in the intervening years as a kind of personal and professional wish list: She’s launching her own practice right here in New Canaan.
The first business the ’95 Wilton High School graduate has owned, New Canaan Podiatry will open at 107 Cherry St. immediately after an Open House planned for April 6.
“I’m super excited about opening up,” Tauber told NewCanaanite.com when asked about the prospect of launching her own business. “It’s a little bit daunting, opening up your own practice, but I’ve been practicing over 15 years so I am pretty confident in what I do.”
Dr. Jennifer Tauber of New Canaan Podiatry. Contributed
Rightly so. A lifelong aspiring doctor or teacher (“I always wanted to do something where you are educating people and taking care of them”), Tauber in New Canaan Podiatry envisions a set of services tailored to the needs of locals—a progression from the Bethel practice that is stirring buzz in town a full month before its launch.
Laura Budd of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, which New Canaan Podiatry has joined, said she and Executive Director Tucker Murphy are “so excited for Dr. Tauber’s new office on Cherry Street to open.”
“From what we can see it will be a state-of-the-art facility that will attract patients from all over lower Fairfield County. Dr. Tauber attended the Chamber’s New Member Breakfast in January and we look forward to working with her to promote her business.”
Asked about how she chose New Canaan, Tauber noted that the town is home to “a lot of athletes.”
“It’s a huge sports town and a town where people do not want to be sidelined with minor injuries,” she said. “I know a lot of what I offer my patients will get them back up and running—no pun intended—as soon as possible. So I think I have a lot as far as casting people for orthotics. I also have a MLS [multiwave locked system] laser, which is used for chronic injuries [such as] chronic heel pain, arthritis, even acute strains. It’s very effective.”
For Tauber, New Canaan Podiatry is a also far more than a chance to run her own practice the way she wants (“I want it to be mine”), benefit fully from her own hard work and expertise, control its growth, sports medicine-focused services and progress.
It’s chance to cut out a tough commute to Bethel and spend more time with her family.
“Of any time in my life, the time to do this is now,” Tauber said. “My girls are older, they are not babies any more.”
She added: “I want to be home in New Canaan, with my girls,” saying now is a time when it seems especially “good for girls to see that their mom can do something like this and empower them as well.”
Creating a five-minute commute also will allow Tauber to become even more deeply involved in a community that she cares about, she said.
“I love the town of New Canaan—obviously, we are raising our kids here,” she said. “I would love to be more involved and I think that opening a business in town and being here will make it much easier to be involved.”
In addition to the orthotics and sports foot injury work, services offered and problems addressed at New Canaan Podiatry will include diabetes foot care, medical pedicures, tendonitis, foot and ankle trauma, amputation prevention and heel pain.
A basketball player at Wilton High School who suffered plantar fasciitis herself and was healed by a podiatrist, Tauber was introduced to podiatry by the dean of biology at Manhattan College. One attraction to the field, she said, is that it’s of the few medical specialties that offers relief quickly to patients.
“A patient can come in with heel pain, you give them a cortisone injection, teach some stretches and if they don’t feel better that same day, they feel better soon,” she said. “It’s a lot of instant gratification for a patient, which is a really nice feeling for a medical professional.”
After her residency, Tauber worked for one year for a company that hired dentists and podiatrists to work at nursing facilities, then learned about a job opening at Bethel Podiatry through a podiatrist who was treating her own mom.
Now, as she readies for next month’s opening of New Canaan Podiatry—a milestone that’s been more than one year in the making—Tauber said she’s climbing a different type of learning curve.
“There are things that I never knew about, when you are employing somebody, and as far as laws, taxes, sales tax,” she said. She’ll launch the practice with one officer manager so that she can leave administrative work to that person.
“It’s all about productivity in the office,” Tauber said. “I don’t want to have to worry about taking phone calls and billing. I want to focus on treating patients to the best of my ability.”
New Canaan Podiatry’s website is here, its Facebook page is here and Instagram here.