E-cigarette use in teens has doubled in a year. The CDC reports that 1 in 10 high school students admitted to ever using an e-cigarette in 2012. The rate of use doubled for middle school students as well. Although I’m not surprised, I remember just weeks ago tweeting about my dismay with Jenny McCarthy’s new job — advertising e-cigarettes. I took flak. Some advocates for e-cigs felt I was shortsighted and …
We live in a profoundly different time today when it comes to caregiving, parenting, and gaining health care/advice than we did even 5 or 10 years ago. The Internet has changed things dramatically.
During an interview recently a reporter asked, “You were raised on digital media, yes?” Well, no. I didn’t started using email until late 1995 just prior to leaving college, didn’t get a cell phone until I was teaching, didn’t …
Simply not factual. That’s really all that needs to be said in response to Michael Edwards’ opinion piece entitled “Vaccine Side Effects and Why You Shouldn’t Vaccinate” published in Organic Lifestyle Magazine recently. This is clearly a non-peer reviewed, non-fact-checked online publication that Mr. Edwards edits and owns.
That being said, Edwards’ piece is so egregious I’m unable to hold my breath. Although I’m no watchdog, the dangerous writing demands physician attention partly …
Jenny McCarthy is officially joining The View. “Do I have opinions?” one reporter asked. Yup.
My concerns center around Jenny McCarthy’s past willingness to trade-in her experience for expertise. That is, she widely shared her theories and anecdotes about her son’s experience with learning challenges and falsely placed blame on vaccines for his then-diagnosed autism. I will not discount her private experience.
What I discount …
A JAMA Pediatrics article found that the use of pediatric CT scans rose in the late 1990′s and early 2000′s. Further, research shows that these CT scans can increase risk for future cancer diagnoses. Authors calculated the risk: they estimate that for every 4 million pediatric CT scans preformed annually, some 4800 children will go on to develop cancer as a result. Like many studies published this decade, the …
Typically, teen girls do not need a pelvic exam until they are 21. Most parents are surprised to hear this, especially if they know their teen is sexually active.
About 1/2 of teen girls are sexually active during high school which puts them at risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI) and unwanted pregnancy. However, for routine prevention and care, girls rarely need an internal pelvic or speculum exam during high school. …
Last week I served lunch at my son’s school. It was a hoot, really, serving an entire K-8 school lunch. Dishing out lasagna, broccoli, pizza, and grilled cheese provided all sorts of insight into what lunch is like in 2013. My son didn’t choose exactly as I’d predict (see below). When a 33-year prospective study published recently which connects childhood ADHD with adult obesity, …
I’m going to sound very middle-aged in this post. Whenever I talk about texting and driving I tend to show my age. I don’t know how it happened or when it was that I truly became a grown-up, but when it comes to texting and driving I feel nothing like a sixteen year-old.
Unfortunately, teens are particularly vulnerable in the car. Motor vehicle accidents are the number one killer of teens …
The FDA announced recently that it is approving Plan B for all girls age 15 and up without a prescription.
This is good news for girls in the US of A. The easier the access to contraception, the less likely girls will have an unintended pregnancy.
As many as 80% of pregnancies in teen girls in the United States are unintended. Most pregnancies are …
For practicing physicians, there’s a tricky balance in believing that the Internet can help save lives.
I’m a doctor who encourages families to look up health info online and one who believes technology will afford improved partnerships. Yet, when we’re in the old-fashioned exam room, there isn’t always a place for the Internet. Many clinics block video-streaming sites and don’t allow for traditional email …
Our 5 year-old keeps forgetting to draw arms on his people at school. The lack of arms has evolved since school started in September and even came up in his parent-teacher conference recently. I found it odd– he always seems to remember that humans have arms when he draws at home. We didn’t mention it to him. And when his brother …
I can’t stop thinking about a drive-thru. Not the one for burgers and shakes but the one for ear checks, sports forms, quick med refill visits or a lingering rash. For those things you just want to know fast or need done now, but don’t want to spend 2 hours resolving. For those things that really make you worry as a parent. Instead of the millisecond-mall-type clinic, we all want …
We had one of each in our house: one baby that we let cry for periods of time to self-soothe and one where I simply couldn’t bear to hear the crying in quite the same way. You’d think it would have been just the same for both of our boys, but it wasn’t. Clearly I wasn’t the same parent each time around.
There are many things that go into the equation …
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I recently saw a number of tweets from parents and fellow pediatricians on Twitter criticizing Marissa Mayer for announcing that she’d return to work within 1-2 weeks of the delivery of her first child.
First off, I’ll start with my assumptions:
I’m authoring this post in the belief that Ms Mayer has access to quality health care–that is, she has the ear of a board-certified obstetrician, a board-certified pediatrician, and access to a …
I had an unexpected gift this week: a not-so-sick sick day with my 5 year-old. And it really couldn’t have come at a better time.
We’ve never had a sick day like this before and he’s off to Kindergarten in September so the days were running out for preschool stolen-away sick leave.
In the past when he’s been ill he’s been well enough for me to head off to clinic or work …
One magical thing I see while working in health care is the love story. Each and every child who encounters a diagnosis or illness spawns a collection of love stories around them. The stories come spontaneously from parents, siblings, friends, nurses, doctors, community, and peers. It all happens organically and sometimes it happens without notice. Babies cling to their parents when they ache; parents cling to their children when they …
I had a phenomenal day in clinic yesterday. Imperfect for sure but inspiring, connected, and busy. I felt useful and like anybody else, that feels so good to me. Productivity can be defined in various ways and yesterday I fulfilled my personal definition. I wrote an email to a friend and cardiologist this morning where I said, “But I must say, it’s a sincere fortune to be a doctor some days. Yesterday …
When I was a medical student and resident physician, those around me taught me how to distrust the pharmaceutical industry and how to distrust the insurance companies. The drug companies just wanted the public to buy their medications (to get rich) and the insurance companies just wanted to block services for my patients (to get rich).
The more I learn as a physician, the more I realize how little I know.
The …
Stop what you’re doing to read this The New England Journal of Medicine perspective by Dr. Doug Diekema. It’s about vaccines, opportunities for health, and physician obligation. Written for physicians, it also speaks loudly to parents and includes a few very essential points. The whole time I read the article, my thoughts kept leaping to our imminent opportunities. Today, in 2012, we can harness the tools of social media …
I see this as a glass half-full, glass half-empty issue. Recently, a study was published in Pediatrics detailing research conducted in May of 2010 about parents’ preferences to use alternative vaccination schedules versus following the recommended CDC vaccination schedule. The majority of the media coverage focused on the finding that over 10% of parents followed a schedule other than the one recommended by the CDC. Not perfect and not ideal …
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