When you reach for ibuprofen for your sore back or a pill to help you sleep, are you sending a bad message to your kid?
Yes, says Bryant Gumbel in his video commentary about the drug charges against ball player Alex Rodriguez. While he thinks that Rodriguez should be punished for being a liar and a cheat, he doesn’t think that people should be shocked by the fact that Rodriguez was …
Are parents active parts of a national drug epidemic?
Recently, I “launched” my oldest off to college. As anticipated, it was an intense emotional experience full of joy, sadness, and many things in between. (I have to tip my hat to Beverly Beckham for her piece I was the sun, the kids were my planets that was very helpful. However, I might have written that my child was the sun, a burst of light in our household, and the experience …
Are ADHD drugs responsible for mental illness in college?
Recently, parents all over the Kansas City area waited patiently for the news that the 6th graders were okay. Many were holding their breath.
And those of us whose children ever step foot onto a school bus, thoughts came to our brains that we don’t like to talk about.
The good news is that the kids were fine. Certainly shaken, but no critical injuries. The community is thankful …
Should school buses have seat belts?
Now in my final year of residency in pediatrics, there will be a lot of “lasts.” Since the time we are kids, we often remember our different “lasts,” especially when it comes to school.
During the back-to-school rush at our primary care clinic, I had the opportunity to talk with several rising senior high school students who will be starting their “last first-day of high school” this week. I vividly remember …
Reflecting on the final year of pediatrics residency
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 …
Social networks influence parents’ vaccine decisions
Online dating is a bad idea for teens — especially young teens.
That’s why it wasn’t particularly responsible of Seventeen Magazine to publish a blog in which “dating blogger” Isabelle Furth floated the idea of using sites like Match.com to find dates. To be fair, she had concerns about the idea, and she’s in college, so theoretically old enough to make these decisions. But college kids don’t read Seventeen. Middle school …
Why online dating is a bad idea for teens
Many, myself included, have written about the overuse of head computed tomography (CT) scanning in children. This concern has become more focused now that we have some data on the radiation risk of those scans. The bottom line is not that we should stop doing head CTs in children, but that we should always balance the risk against the benefit, just as we should do with all medical testing. In …
What is the ideal number of CT scans for headaches in children?
A while back I was working in pediatric urgent care and had occasion to do something I have done many times since starting out in medicine. I called a consult. The reason, like many consults, was an abnormality on a study that required a specialist’s opinion. I paged the resident on call for this particular specialty.
When they called back I was treated, right from the get-go, to some serious attitude. This was a legitimate …
Calling a consult: Disrespect from specialists hurts patients
Doctors are often asked what treatment options they would opt for if their patient was their own child.
Perhaps the most gratifying question I am ever asked as a pediatrician is, “Doctor, if this were your child, what would you do?” So often today, being a physician can feel like being a technician — parents come in believing they already know their child’s diagnosis from their Internet search. They know what …
Doctor, if this were your child, what would you do?
Every once in a while, I’m forced to engage the health care system in a more personal way. Yesterday was one of those days. First, one of my children (who shall remain nameless), decided to take a stroll in the mulch on Monday without any shoes. He managed to lodge an enormous splinter in his foot which I couldn’t get out. By the time I saw it that night, it …
We have the potential to have the best health care system in the world
A study published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics showing a connection between hours of sleep and childhood behavior problems has received a lot of media attention. Children who slept less than 9.4 hours of sleep had more impulsivity, anger, tantrums and annoying behavior. The obvious conclusion-more sleep, better behavior. If only it were that simple.
If one takes the time to look closely, one will discover that what …
Sleep problems are behavior problems: We must know the family story
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 …
Dangerous online writing demands physician attention
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 …
Jenny McCarthy on The View: Trading experience for expertise
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I remember how my son’s autism diagnosis was delivered. He was three years old. It wasn’t a surprise really, merely a confirmation of something that I expected and feared. He was already enrolled in speech and occupational therapy making very little progress. He saw a developmental specialist at age two and two and half who initially believed that he was not autistic but merely delayed with sensory issues. After we …
It’s time primary care doctors diagnose autism
It happens about once a week. As I scroll through Facebook and peruse the latest happenings, I notice that someone (usually a mom of small children, like me) has posed a question to their Facebook friends about some type of health dilemma.
“Little Sally is cutting teeth, and she’s miserable. What can I give her to make her feel better?”
“Johnny has such a bad cough, and he can barely breathe. Anyone …
Facebook medical advice isn’t what’s best for your child
I believe most physicians have cases that haunt them, often patients whose treatment courses do not go ideally and who leave a mark on the physician, altering the way he or she practices ever after. When the physician is a surgeon, it might be a patient who died on the table. For a hematologist, it might be a patient with cancer who could not be cured. For a developmental pediatrician, …
Haunted by an autism diagnosis: A sense of closure after 20 years
I’m not big on spying on teens generally. I think that privacy is important. And by the time they are teens, in most cases we need to trust that at least some of the stuff we’ve said for years has stuck–and we need to let them learn to be independent and make choices without us.
That said, if you have a teen who drives, there’s some spying I suggest, assuming you …
Check to see if your teen is texting when driving
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 …
Judiciously order CT scans to protect our children
I’ve learned a few things about children over the years. While most have come from raising children, the rest have come from caring for them as patients. Knowing children, knowing their hearts and their ways, gives me great joy. I like to think that as I know them better, I become more like them, and while my time on earth may not be any longer for it, it may be …
What medicine has taught me about children
Emily wrote in about an article about prenatal ultrasounds and autism: “I saw this on The Daily Beast today. Is the media trying to freak us expecting couples out or what? How big of a question is this in scientific circles or is this just sensational stuff? Sometimes I think there should be studies about how the internet causes anxiety disorders!”
A good question, and another post that I’m going to put …
Ultrasounds don’t cause autism
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