A recent little essay entitled “Do patients bond best with doctors who misinform them with optimism” got me thinking about balancing honesty and optimism in practicing any medical specialty in which patients not infrequently die.
Tragic things can happen in the pediatric intensive care unit. Anyone who works there — doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and many others — see these …
Balancing honesty and optimism in critical care
When it comes to getting parents to cut back on their kids’ screen time, we doctors aren’t doing such a great job.
Like most of my colleagues, I talk about screen time at almost all checkups. I talk about how too much screen time makes a kid more likely to be overweight and have behavioral problems. With the parents of babies and …
Cut back on screen time for kids
A new message pops up on my phone. I signal to the attending and step out of the OR. I’m on anesthesia rotation at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, as a pediatrics resident at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. But because I’m also a mom to a first grader in Cupertino, both my pager and my cell phone are frequently “on call”.
“I want to take this opportunity to update …
It’s time to stop being afraid to study gun violence
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 …
How to foster generosity at an early age
If you ask for a spoon in my house, you may expect to be directed towards a drawer of neatly nestled stacks of stainless.
Instead, you will likely find this a tangled mess of silver and plastic in no apparent order.
I used to be bothered by a such a disorganized silverware drawer, but that was years ago. I have let go of …
Ask your toddler to do the chores
The AP alert flashed over my phone, its words chilling — gun shooter — elementary school-Connecticut — then the report: 27 killed, 20 of them young children. Killed by a young adult not old enough to legally buy a drink, but able to get his hands on a fearsome amount of firepower, and old enough to have developed a hatred of others that nobody will ever comprehend.
Struggling with this since, I …
How technology can exacerbate mental health problems
On Friday morning I was seeing a patient, chatting about the holidays. She had given me a gingerbread house making kit for my kids — which she had done annually since I had become her doctor.
“You are doing so well,” I declared, “Have a very Merry Christmas!”
“You too!” she said as we hugged and she left the examination room.
At 12pm …
As an oncologist, I thought I had the words to console the survivors
Gunman. Elementary school. Death toll rising.
The news of Sandy Hook was paralyzing. Anger, sadness, and confusion bubbled into my mouth until I could not speak. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to leave work – to grab my kids – to be home.
As the tragedy of the moment continued to stream across my computer, like a horrific movie script impossibly true, a stinging email from the …
Light will help us to heal from Sandy Hook
A patient of mine was seeing a local specialist. The parents wondered if it would be appropriate to get another opinion. Contrary to what patients might think, most physicians are absolutely fine with this and some even encourage it. However, patients often want to know if seeking another opinion is justified. It is my job as a primary care provider to help families decide when or how to obtain that …
How do you know if a second medical opinion is justified?
The events of the past week in Connecticut hopefully have given us all pause to appreciate the fragileness and uncertainty of life. We have all cried with heartache for the parents who have lost children. We have honored the adults that gave their lives to protect the students in their charge. We have all stood with outrage at the senselessness and brutality of this crime. As time passes, the families …
After Newtown, treasure the preciousness of time
I don’t know how to move forward after the shootings of the children in Newtown.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that I have a first grader. Whenever I close my eyes, I have visions of a gunman storming into his school. My son’s classroom is just off the main lobby–it would be his class a gunman would get to first. When I see the list of …
Honor the memory of the Newtown children by taking action
The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut have been traumatizing for the entire nation. While we have unfortunately become used to hearing about school shootings and other public mass shootings in the U.S., the brutal murder of 20 innocent elementary school children (all ages 6 and 7) is just too much to bear.
In fact, the moment …
How a psychologist explained Sandy Hook to his children
For the families who lost children, their world as they knew it has effectively ended. Yet somehow the sun rises again and the next day is here. For the rest of us grieving along with these families, the only way to move forward is to take what President Obama called “meaningful action.” I interpret this to be action that is radical and significant enough that it will somehow give meaning …
How can we as a society honor the dead children?
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Let me tell you a secret. Examining eardrums in a squirming, angry child is really difficult—if not impossible. If the doc in your screaming, struggling child’s ear for a half-second, it’s unlikely that anything useful was seen.
Sometimes, it is just impossible to get a decent exam. But there are ways that parents (and doctors!) can help at least increase the chance …
Tips to examine the eardrum of the squirming, angry child
Outrage #1: Wasting time of skilled caregivers. Everyday skilled nurses and physicians’ assistants waste hours of time on the telephone either getting approval for medications that we prescribe for our patients or trying to fight a rejection for a medication we requested.
Outrage #2: Choosing a medication for cost, not effectiveness. A child cannot breathe because the acid and other nasty stomach …
4 reasons why doctors should be outraged
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 …
Physicians must innovate to meet the needs of patients
Parents worry when their children do not eat vegetables.
And, I understand why.
Parents know that vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, and get frustrated when they are consistently left on their child’s plate.
The result? Parental “veggie-stress.”
Although veggie-stress begins at the family dinner table, it can be amplified by the rather faddish way parents talk about poor vegetable eaters within playgroups. Conversations among parents can …
Your child hates vegetables: 3 tips from a pediatrician
I live in Eugene — a sweet little community with snow-capped mountains, farmers’ markets and the friendliest people around.
But a few weeks ago, one of our beloved pediatricians shot himself in the head in a public park. Earlier this year, one of our surgeons was found dead in his car from carbon monoxide poisoning.
And just before him, a urologist shot himself in the head in his backyard. Before him, a …
Why aren’t more people talking about physician suicide?
When Rodney Peterson, a high school headmaster in Boston, assaulted his wife five weeks after she gave birth, it seemed a textbook example of the way abusive partners exploit new mothers’ vulnerability. Women are more likely to be assaulted or killed by partners while pregnant or after recently giving birth, research shows.
Traditionally, children were regarded as accidental bystanders to violence involving their parents – a view that is now being …
How children are affected by violence involving their parents
There are some important new recommendations both about strep throats in general and about tonsillectomy – taking out the tonsils — as a treatment for recurrent strep throats.
Some of us can recall a time when getting your tonsils out was one of the rites of passage of childhood. Usually a related procedure is added — an adenoidectomy, removing the adenoids as well. It’s called a T&A …
Where are the tonsils and why would we take them out?
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