Pediatricians and the clinicians who care for children writing on KevinMD about child health: childhood illness, development, vaccines and the parents who refuse them, breastfeeding and the pressure around it, childhood obesity, prevention, and the realities of caring for young patients and their families. Most contributors are pediatricians. For a maintained record of what pediatricians have said about children's health since 2004, from fever and sleep through obesity, abuse, teenagers, and Medicaid, see Children's health: what pediatricians say, in their own words. For what physicians have said about vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, from the autism claim through measles, exemptions, and federal policy, see Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words. For what child psychiatrists and pediatricians have said about children's and teens' mental health, see Mental health: what psychiatrists and physicians say, in their own words. For what pediatricians have said about breastfeeding and postpartum care, see Women's health: what physicians say, in their own words.
As the globe continues to surf the wave of this unpredictable global pandemic in a time of technological advancement, one question seems to come up often during pediatric outpatient visits: Will the kids be OK?
One thing is for certain: all this uncertainty and stress will surely impact the next generation. Experts across the globe are hypothesizing what inherent traits these “baby zoomers” will gain and how COVID-19 will impact the …
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Why the pandemic is the perfect opportunity to introduce meditation to children
“No school today!” All of us can remember waking up to these words connected to whatever weather or current event thing and breathing a sigh of relief. A day without learning, without teachers nagging: a day to do whatever you wanted. What are today’s children feeling about this phrase?
The problem is that we aren’t really asking them. A quick internet search about children and COVID-19 brings up countless articles on …
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Let kids come to the table
One thing, which is constant in health care, is that it is continuously evolving. The challenges health care leaders are facing are not simple. They are often multifaceted, which require strategic, creative, and inclusive solutions. There are competing priorities and goals. Critical thinking has become an essential skill for all healthcare leaders.
Here are five simple tips to help you practice your critical thinking skills.
1. Ponder on the challenge. Spend as …
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5 power tips to refine your critical thinking skills
August 1 to 7 is National Breastfeeding Week.
I wish it wasn’t.
I said it. I’m a family medicine physician with experience in working with moms and newborns in their feeding journeys. I don’t support a breastfeeding week.
I wish it was something else like “Moms/Dads/grandparents/caregivers Newborn Feeding Week.”
When my daughter, Wendy, was born during my fellowship, I was geared up to breastfeed during maternity leave and then pump/breastfeed after returning to …
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Sometimes, breast isn’t always best
Today at work, a mother asked me what I would do if it was my son in the isolette and not hers.
It’s not the first time I have been asked this. I understand where the question comes from, and yet I’m at a loss of what to say every time. Not because I haven’t pondered it before. No. It’s because I have asked myself the question far too many times: …
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Being a neonatologist and a mother
This is the million-dollar question that I’ve been asked over and over again by distraught parents wanting to do right by their children.
Parents want to have their children stay home so they can keep them healthy and safe. At the same time, they are worried about the far-reaching consequences of them not being in school. School is not just about academics but also about social and emotional wellbeing. For some …
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Should I send my child back to school? A letter to parents.
Writing a pandemic novel is sort of like running a mock code. You may feel a tinge of fear as you work through the actively changing scenario, but mostly you feel the excitement of the challenge. Yet when an actual patient is deteriorating before you, all you feel is terror.
In 2007, as I was traveling daily between Washington, DC and Baltimore on a commuter train, I read an …
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Imagining a pandemic as a physician novelist
Walking into the COVID ward in the children’s hospital, those words seemed etched on an invisible wall, a wall that I wanted to choose to stay behind. It was a wall I could stay behind for the first couple months of the pandemic where multiple studies touted how children weren’t getting sick, and my hospital had seen very few mild cases of the virus in children manifesting from a fever …
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“COVID doesn’t affect children.” You may want to rethink that.
“Where were you born?”
“Here!” Yousef (not real name) with happy, gleaming eyes excitedly pointed at Algeria on the laminated world map hanging on the bulletin board in the exam room.
“And Dad was born here,” pointing to Morocco with mom nodding approvingly.
Who knew that an inexpensive, laminated map could be such an icebreaker for families? Simply sharing immigration stories and experiences living abroad created a wonderful way for families to engage …
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A simple act to help families struggling to find their way in a foreign culture
Concern
There is no debate on the insurmountable value of kids needing to be in schools. CDC data shows that children account for 6% of COVID-19 cases and 0.2% of all deaths. Yet, the system can miserably fail if bullied into opening. Children could turn into potential super-spreaders or develop multi-system inflammation, Kawasaki, or toxic-shock syndrome. And once that domino falls, we …
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Opening schools? The devil is in the details.
“There is no such thing as balance, just different degrees of imbalance at different times,” said the speaker. I was at a work-life balance panel for women in medicine during medical school. As a young woman just starting my medical training, I found that statement liberating and unsettling at the same time, and it stuck with me. I have lived those words many times over as I’ve navigated the past …
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Work-life blur in the age of COVID-19
I lost my mom to breast cancer two months before finding out I was pregnant for the first time … with twins. Trying to navigate being a new mom of two without my own mom was ridiculously hard, both physically and emotionally. While I had help at first, within a month, I often found myself home alone with two screaming colicky babies. There were times I felt like I was …
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Lifestyle medicine is a prescription to treat physician burnout
Growing up in Puerto Rico, “babas” (bottles: biberón/botellas) and “bobos” (pacifiers: chupetes/chupón) were very common among the families and children of the island. I still remember our Abuelita giving us milk in our “babas,” so my younger sister and I were sure to fall asleep better. From the time of our births, to when my sister was three years old, the “bobo” was also consistently being used in our home.
Now, …
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Bottles and pacifiers: advice from a Latinx pediatrician
It’s that wonderful time of year when new interns take their first steps into hospitals as practicing physicians One of us has just completed her intern year and the other quite a while back (but recently enough to still remember some of it), so we wanted to share some tips for the pediatric interns about to start this wonderful adventure.
1. Don’t be overly anxious (as a little anxiety is expected). …
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9 tips for new pediatric residents
As a newly minted neonatal-cardiac intensivist, I was all ready to take on the world. I mean, caring for the babies with congenital heart disease (CHD), congenital diaphragmatic hernias (CDH) and all other congenital anomalies and premature birth. I was excited and ready for service. It was my 27th year of “being a student.” I had gone through the grind of medical school, residency training, fellowship training, and an additional …
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Embrace the growth mindset while practicing the humbling business of modern medicine
Amaka was a timid-looking girl, tall in stature with a head of braided hair, like myself. She was unassuming and composed at first glance and, if my hypothesis was correct, she could not have been older than me. We were similar, both being of Igbo heritage, but also different—Amaka was pregnant. Admittedly, at 14, I had apprehensions, but they were mitigated by my curiosity about her story. Our similarities gave …
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A medical student’s physician inspiration
