Walking parents through the decision to vaccinate their children is a conversation. The vast majority of the time it is an easy conversation. Sometimes it is difficult.
If the conversation goes like this, then we, as doctors aren’t doing our jobs:
Pediatrician: “Are you going to vaccinate your child?”
Parent: “No.”
Pediatrician: “Get out of my office.”
The medical community has lost a lot of ground …
How to talk with parents about vaccines
Our 13-year-old woke up feeling lousy two days ago. He had a sore throat and sinus pressure, and felt really tired and generally icky. He didn’t look toxic — just a little tired. I gave him a zinc lozenge and told him to get ready for school — a method that generally can tease out exactly how bad one of my kids feels. He just sat at the table.
We generally …
The art of medicine lies in knowing when a little time is needed
Recently I reviewed my son’s high school essay on To Kill A Mockingbird. I was surprised and pleased to rediscover, or perhaps discover for the first time now that I was viewing it from the perspective of over 50 years of life experience, the profound wisdom of the book.
In one of the novel’s most famous quotes, Atticus tell his daughter Scout, “you never really understand a person until you consider things …
Perhaps ADHD is a problem of not listening
Here’s a question I’m almost afraid to ask: when you go to a doctor (not one you see all the time), does the doctor usually introduce himself (or herself) and explain what they are there to do?
And, do they sit down?
I really hope that you are answering yes … but I know that the answer is often no.
In a study recently published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, researchers observed 29 …
What to do if your doctor isn’t polite
On December 4th, 2013, Katie Couric gave the HPV vaccine center stage during a segment on her talk show, Katie. The segment, entitled “The HPV Controversy,” was 20 minutes long, but ignited a digital firestorm between pro- and anti-vaccine voices that raged for days after the stage lights went dark.
In partnership with Global Prairie, the entire online conversation surrounding this Katie segment was digitally captured using DataFarm. …
Analyzing the Katie Couric effect on the vaccine conversation
Doctors are tough critics — as well they should be. The news that CVS Caremark pharmacies will no longer sell tobacco brought about quite a bit of rapid online dialogue. Even President Obama chimed-in with praise, a response that some in the business world say is worth billions for CVS. Having a good reputation, particularly when you’re in the business of delivering health care and lending health advice, seems essential. In my …
CVS stops selling tobacco: Let’s keep it in perspective
The flu, RSV, colds, croup, strep throat, ear infections. They all have one thing in common: they can cause fevers. And as any parent can attest to, it’s often the fever itself that freaks us out more than anything and prompts many parents to call their child’s pediatrician or hustle them off to the emergency room.
Fever is clearly not a parent’s …
5 truths about fevers in children
When it comes to the parts of parenthood that people dread, well, there’s so much to choose from. There are poopy diapers. Vomit. Tantrums. Nasty teenagers. But all of that pales in comparison with … The Talk.
The talk about sex, that is.
Nobody wants to talk to their kids about sex. Nobody wants to think about their kids having sex — the same way nobody likes to think about their parents …
6 tips for talking to your kids about sex
When, a couple times each year, dozens of our county teenagers train to become EMTs, they know they are taking on a challenging, heavy responsibility. But probably none of them are ready for the kind of horrible death our community experienced a week ago, when a 15-year-old-girl walking home from school in Rockville was struck and killed in a crash involving two cars that news reports say may have been …
Thank an EMT for their courage, their dedication and their spirit
It’s time again for bronchiolitis, which usually comes in winter through spring. In some ways this problem is similar to asthma, but in other important ways it is very different. With winter upon us it’s time to reacquaint ourselves with this common entity. There is a reliable seasonal arrival of the virus we call RSV, the chief cause of bronchiolitis. The letters stand for respiratory syncytial virus, a description of what …
Bronchiolitis and RSV: What you need to know
Ron was puzzled. He had been a mechanic for many years, and had known Ms. McCarthy through two previous vehicles. But what could he say to a request like this?
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to do it this way. What’s the harm?” The mother of two seemed sincere and earnest. Ron knew she wanted to take good care of her car, and the kids who rode with her …
Seat belts, brakes and tires: A vaccine story
For many of my out-of-school hours as a child, no adult had any idea what I was doing.
This has everything to do with who I am today, in some remarkably good ways.
As a parent, I can’t help but wince at the lack of supervision I received, especially given what my friends and I did. We spent hours in really tall fir trees, pretending they were houses. I lived on Long …
Sometimes being a good parent means doing less, not more
Gastroenteritis, often called “stomach flu,” is common in children. It has nothing to do with influenza, the “true flu,” which is caused by a respiratory virus. Gastroenteritis is caused by a different set of viruses. These viruses are generally transmitted by what physicians call the fecal-oral route, which sounds kind of gross.
What we mean by that term is that the bug is in our intestinal tract and gets on our …
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A recent study in JAMA Pediatrics discovered that conversations about sexual health between a health provider and a teen patient are shockingly short (less than 40 seconds), full of bland yes/no answers, and more likely to occur if the patient is older. The research has put a glaring light on the need for better sex education opportunities during routine teen health visits.
I believe all teenagers deserve …
3 ways parents can partner with their pediatricians’ sex talks
As a physician, not a day goes by without a new acronym I need to look up, a new policy I need to follow, another box I need to click or another criteria I need to meet — and this is just to keep up. While the health care picture and its various unknowns loom ever larger in the news, and health information emails overstuff my inbox, it is worth …
Finding the right EMR vendor can help navigate mandates
As an orthopedic surgeon, I’m acutely aware of the data and conversations surrounding sports-induced concussions, particularly in football. Encouragingly, the medical community is experimenting with proper treatment, diagnosis, and assessing the long-term effects of concussions; recently the NIH announced details of how it would begin using a sizable grant from the NFL for just this purpose. Yet preventing them continues to be a challenge not just at the professional athlete …
Kids and concussions: The dilemma facing a doctor
When the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with new guidelines a couple of years ago extending the age of diagnosis of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) down to age 4, it seemed as if Pfizer might have been waiting in the wings. Soon after, a new preparation of ADHD medication in an oral suspension, for kids too young to swallow pills, became available.
I was a lone voice expressing opposition …
Rising ADHD rates is a symptom of our broken health system
One of my favorite aspects of my developmental pediatrics practice at the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC) at Einstein is that I have the opportunity to follow children and their families in the clinic over the long term — often for many years. Because I am the director of the Read more…
Milestones of children with developmental disabilities should be celebrated
Months before my life was upended, a doctor friend tried to explain my forthcoming role in terms I’d understand. “Imagine being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “You’re in charge of a single patient, but she is needy as hell.”
Medical training prepared me for motherhood in some ways (the assortment of facts blurrily retained from my pediatrics rotation in medical school; the skill, or delusion, …
Reflections of a new mother in medicine
I’ve been skeptical of the trend of “holding back” children with late birthdays. These are kids, usually born in the summer, who are just a few months short of the next grade cut-off. Some parents wonder whether it would be wise to hold them back a few months, so they end up one of the oldest (rather than youngest) kids in their class. This might seem to confer an advantage …
Holding children back a grade and ADHD: A problem or solution?
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