Children’s health

1,495 articles · Since 2011

Articles, page 39

When an anti-vaccination organization convinces a physician to join their ranks

February 26, 2018Feb 26, 20185

It’s always a coup when an anti-vaccination organization can convince a physician to join their ranks. They act like it provides a thin veneer of legitimacy to their pseudoscientific cause. This was recently the case with an anti-vaccination organization in Ohio (my home state.) They recruited the former medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute. You may remember his infamous article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in January 2017. …

Physician voices

Farewell pager, I’ll always cherish the memories

Rohini Harvey, MD

February 15, 2018Feb 15, 2018

This was a momentous week for me. After 14 years of carrying a hospital-grade old-school text pager to receive messages at work, I finally traded it in for a cell phone app. It should have been easy to get rid of my beeper. But instead, I felt waves of nostalgia when I turned it off for the last time. Those 240-character, pre-Twitter, low-resolution LCD messages follow the arc of my …

Physician voices

Dear Mom and Dad: Are you calling your pediatrician’s office too often?

Anonymous

February 13, 2018Feb 13, 20185

I work as a pediatrician in a bustling metropolis, in an outpatient setting of a world-renowned academic center. One of those non-profit hospitals you see in television ads. For the last three years, our outpatient encounters have plummeted, and the mothership has put all efforts into recuperating financial losses. Meanwhile, our office phones are ringing off the hook, and we cannot seem to hire enough nursing staff to deal with …

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Physician voices

The huge impact a dying infant had on this physician

Brian Han, MD

February 11, 2018Feb 11, 20182

Lines are slowly being taken out of the small infant, his bruised and discolored arms continuing to ooze. Machines and circuits, one by one, are being shut up and turned off. Leads and wires are carefully taken off of the lifeless chest of the once critically ill, but alive infant. Just hours ago, physicians, nurses, and other providers were rushing in and out of the room, desperately doing everything they …

Physician voices

What I learned from the ICU (other than medicine)

Michelle Ramirez, MD

February 5, 2018Feb 5, 2018

This week I had some particularly emotionally tough cases at work, and it got me thinking about life in general and how, in spite of having a tough job, I have learned so much from it. When I think of…

This week I had some particularly emotionally tough cases at work, and it got me thinking about life in general and how, in spite of having a tough job, I have learned so much from it.

When I think of childhood diseases, there are the ones that are chronic, the ones that let you process that your baby is sick and has a potential life-threatening condition. You have weeks and months to …

Medical education

How a symbol influenced this patient encounter

Christel Wekon-Kemeni

February 1, 2018Feb 1, 20188

I lightly knocked on the door of the next patient that I was set to obtain a history from. It was late in the morning in the middle of the week, and my mind was becoming increasingly preoccupied with deciding what to eat for lunch. My preceptor had allowed me to practice my history-taking skills with every patient that had an appointment with her that morning and had also given …

Patient voices

A #MeToo moment with a pediatrician

Lauren Feltz, MHSc

January 31, 2018Jan 31, 201812

There I was, an awkward 13 year old sitting in the doctor’s office. For the past two weeks, I had been complaining to my mom about rib pain, and she had scheduled a visit to the pediatrician. I was very active — I played softball constantly — and she wanted to be sure I hadn’t broken a rib.

“Where does it hurt?” the nurse asked me.

“Right here,” I said, pointing to …

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A #MeToo moment with a pediatrician

Medical education

Medical education systematically ignores the diversity of medical practice

Rebekah Fenton, MD

January 30, 2018Jan 30, 20187

I remember the moment I first saw a female chest X-ray. It was my own. My lecturers in the first months of medical school showed a few chest films, but I failed to recognize that the bodies all looked the same. I proudly showed my sister my clear lungs. She laughed and said, “I can see your boobs.” I looked again at mine with new eyes, taking in the dull, …

Physician voices

Insurance companies manipulate the doctor-patient relationship for financial gain

Denise A. Somsak, MD

January 29, 2018Jan 29, 20185

I am pediatrician who has been practicing for almost twenty years. During my career, I have been employed by two different free-standing children's hospitals, a non-profit community-based health center, and now I own my own practice. In every setting, I…

I am pediatrician who has been practicing for almost twenty years. During my career, I have been employed by two different free-standing children’s hospitals, a non-profit community-based health center, and now I own my own practice. In every setting, I have had to generate coding and billing for my work even when my salary was independent of that billing.

There is no other profession that would dutifully learn the “rules” of …

Conditions and diseases

Your questions about rabies: answered

Roy Benaroch, MD

January 29, 2018Jan 29, 2018

You’ve probably already seen the news: A 6 year old boy in Florida has died of rabies. He had handled a sick bat (some reports said he was trying to rescue the critter), and that was enough contact to transmit the virus. Once symptoms begin, rabies in almost always fatal — so the only way to prevent this from happening again is to avoid contact, and get rabies …

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Your questions about rabies: answered

Conditions and diseases

So the flu shot is only 10 percent effective. Here are 5 reasons to still get it.

Jennifer Variste, MD

January 27, 2018Jan 27, 20184

So you heard the flu shot is 10 percent effective. With so many sources of information available, the primary care provider’s role increasingly becomes that of educator. It is important to me that the parents of my patients make informed…

So you heard the flu shot is 10 percent effective.

With so many sources of information available, the primary care provider’s role increasingly becomes that of educator. It is important to me that the parents of my patients make informed decisions, so when I have a parent decline the influenza vaccine, I make an effort to ask why. The number one response I hear has been “What’s the point? The flu …

Physician voices

A physician mother to her sons

Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD

January 25, 2018Jan 25, 20182

Dear Boys, I am so blessed to be your mom. You each have amazing personalities, unique talents, and special characteristics. I know someday you will grow up and be strong men. Kind men. Respectful men. Successful men. Men like your…

Dear Boys,

I am so blessed to be your mom. You each have amazing personalities, unique talents, and special characteristics. I know someday you will grow up and be strong men. Kind men. Respectful men. Successful men. Men like your grandfathers. Men like your father.

Someday when you go out into the world, you will find yourself working with all different kinds of women. You will work for women, beside women, and …

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A physician mother to her sons

Physician voices

A 16-page note with little information to help physicians

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

January 19, 2018Jan 19, 201840

My pediatric practice is one which harkens back to days long ago when physicians knew their patients and pertinent medical histories by heart. My 81-year-old father and I were in practice together for the past 16 years; he still used the very sophisticated “hunt and peck” to compose emails. The task of transitioning to an electronic record system seemed insurmountable, so we remain on paper. Our medical record system has …

Conditions and diseases

Childhood obesity is a grave threat to our nation’s health

Christopher Johnson, MD

January 16, 2018Jan 16, 20182

We’ve known for some time the prevalence of obesity is growing among Americans -- not just adults, but children, too. Obesity is associated with a long list of medical problems, including heart and other vascular diseases, diabetes, and joint problems.…

We’ve known for some time the prevalence of obesity is growing among Americans — not just adults, but children, too. Obesity is associated with a long list of medical problems, including heart and other vascular diseases, diabetes, and joint problems. It is encouraging that recently the seemingly inexorable growth of pediatric obesity prevalence seems to have reached a plateau. But we still have a future problem looming for population health as …

Conditions and diseases

Learn about Salter-Harris fractures with a Medcomic

Jorge Muniz, PA-C

January 13, 2018Jan 13, 2018

Pediatric physeal fractures have traditionally been described by the five-part Salter-Harris classification system. Type I fractures occur through the growth plate. These injuries may present with normal radiographs, and the diagnosis is often made clinically when tenderness is palpated over…

Pediatric physeal fractures have traditionally been described by the five-part Salter-Harris classification system.

Type I fractures occur through the growth plate. These injuries may present with normal radiographs, and the diagnosis is often made clinically when tenderness is palpated over the growth plate.

Type II fractures occur through the growth plate and metaphysis. Type II injuries are the most common physeal fractures.

Type III fractures occur through the …

Physician voices

A physician lurked on Facebook mom groups. Here’s what she found.

Audrey Nath, MD, PhD

January 9, 2018Jan 9, 201823

In my off time, as a mom and a physician, I spend a decent amount of time lurking in a rather strange environment, even for the internet. A place so filled with anxiety, stories of ill-chosen spouses and little glimpses of unbridled joy, that you’d think you were somehow inside a taping of the Real Housewives of This-crying-baby-makes-me-hope-that-I-end-up-having-a-dissociative-fugue. You know, *that* place.

Online mommy groups on Facebook.

And, there I am, lurking …

Physician voices

Here’s what you learn when a young patient dies

Shubham Bakshi, MD

January 3, 2018Jan 3, 20182

“This is a 17-year-old boy who came in as a category 1 trauma yesterday for a rollover MVC with bilateral uncal herniation, epidural hematoma and subdural hematoma currently intubated and sedated with propofol and fentanyl.” As the overnight resident presented…

As the overnight resident presented this patient on PICU, we could see everyone’s early morning smiles fading slowly and beginning to understand the grave consequences anticipated in this severe traumatic brain injury. We could see the …

Physician voices

How religion helped this physician in the PICU

Christopher Johnson, MD

December 24, 2017Dec 24, 201712

I majored in history of religion in college and have always had an interest in the places various twists and turns of theology can lead people. One relatively recent wrinkle is what has been loosely termed “prosperity gospel” or “prosperity theology.” It’s built upon the basic notion good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Of course, that’s a foundational viewpoint of much of Christianity in the …

Physician voices

Here’s how to take care of yourself in difficult times

Stephanie Wellington, MD

December 19, 2017Dec 19, 2017

At this place again. Place: Neonatal ICU. Time: 3 a.m. Location: Bedside of a sick preterm female. She is intubated and on the ventilator. Antibiotics course through her veins. Blood transfusions, IV fluids and vasopressors support her in the fight…

At this place again.

Place: Neonatal ICU.

Time: 3 a.m.

Location: Bedside of a sick preterm female. She is intubated and on the ventilator. Antibiotics course through her veins. Blood transfusions, IV fluids and vasopressors support her in the fight of her life. Lab tests are checked, and adjustments are made to meet her needs.

Her parents sit beside her isolette. They watch the monitor, silently begging the numbers to give them some sign, …

Physician voices

I’ll never understand why some patients end up as percentages

Evelyn Lai, CRNP

December 19, 2017Dec 19, 2017

Monday I walk into your room in the pediatric intensive care unit as two nurses are repositioning you. Your parents stand nearby — your dad in his frayed baseball cap and khaki cargo shorts. Your mom in baggy jeans wrinkled…

Monday

I walk into your room in the pediatric intensive care unit as two nurses are repositioning you. Your parents stand nearby — your dad in his frayed baseball cap and khaki cargo shorts. Your mom in baggy jeans wrinkled with the same worry as the lines near her eyes. Your little sister sits near the window with a blue hospital mask over her mouth and hugging her knees. Grandma sits …

Children’s health

Articles, page 39

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