The fall sunlight calls my eye to notice little things: the veins on a yellowing maple leaf. The askew feather on a chicken’s wing. The faintest breeze tricking the pond into patterned sin waves around a lone white duck.
What do we owe this world but our ability to parse and observe, to interpret, to be filled enough by moments of abject beauty to return to the ugliness and try to …
Unfortunately, at least from where I sit, suboptimal medical care seems to abound. And every encounter of my family members with the health care behemoth is an opportunity for them to become a recipient of it.
When it comes to shielding them, I have had some failures in the past — it took a minor stroke in my father, who lived in England, for me to realize that he had never …
The precipitous decline in the mental health of U.S. children and adolescents has been meticulously cataloged in newspaper articles, books, and documentaries. In our own pediatrics clinic, the numbers have skyrocketed — a baseball player unable to get out of his car for practice, a teenager with aggressive behavior masking underlying depression and anxiety, and another 9-year-old unable to attend school due to daily panic attacks. Every day now, we …
I saved a baby’s life today.
I say that not to impress anyone or to make myself out to be some kind of deity but because it is simply true.
A three-week-old baby arrived at my office, gray and limp, with agonal respirations and oxygen saturation of 67 percent. My team of dedicated office staff worked with me rapidly and seamlessly, providing oxygen, bag-mask ventilation, and emergency medical services (EMS) activation. Together, …
The goal of making a hospital pediatric program a greater presence in the community hinges upon two areas, building community and alliance with local pediatricians and creating more visibility in the public arena. Both are not mutually exclusive, and each affects the other. The goal is to create a positive experience for both areas that will enhance each individually as they connect with one another.
Unfortunately, if not done correctly, negative …
As is the case throughout the country, central Ohio is in the midst of a viral surge with an unusually high number of ill children for this time of the year, leading to long delays in our urgent cares and emergency departments, in our primary care offices, and with over capacity inpatient units. It’s an extremely busy time for all of us and honestly makes for tiring and stressful days. …
The Oxford dictionary defines insidious as “proceeding in a gradual, subtle way but with harmful effects.” Most people associate this term with clever criminals. I am writing this to ask you to think about it in another way.
Perhaps the greatest joy a person can experience is welcoming a child into the world with so many dreams and visions for the future. Ideally, those dreams come true. But not always. Sometimes …
An excerpt from Absent-Father Syndrome: Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood.
“I’ve sat face to face in front of many adults who were crying their eyes out,” says Rachel Norman, founder of A Mother Far from Home. “They needed healing tools and positive coping mechanisms. They had low self-worth, nonexistent …
One of the most radical implications of the literature on early childhood trauma is that abuse needs to be eliminated from all of our relationships: our families, teachers, colleagues, and government. When government leaders create a new policy, they can proceed in a way that disempowers constituents, or they can proceed in a way that fosters dialogue and shared decision-making. Ironically, the development and implementation of California’s policy …
As a pediatrician, you’d think that I’d be a pro at celebrating growth. After all, I celebrate the growth of children in the office as they meet their developmental milestones and grow physically. I celebrate their academic and social growth.
What I hadn’t celebrated: my own growth. I thought for years that I was beyond that. Even my own professional growth had become tedious: Check the boxes on CME …
I’m a pediatrician and have been practicing for 29 years. I currently own a solo practice.
Here is a story I wrote years after a patient encounter during my residency in 1993. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an experience that would shape my career in general pediatrics.
Marcus is the worst case of child abuse I’ve seen to date. He’s two years old. His mom’s boyfriend dips …
I have an urgent request for the White House as it is garnering support for its national nutrition strategy that was unveiled at the September 28 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health: Tell the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop putting students’ health at risk, and cut the red tape for them to get nondairy replacements for dairy milk in school lunches.
In the United States, …
With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available for children six months and older, we join pediatricians and pharmacists across the country and urge parents to vaccinate their young children against COVID-19 as soon as possible.
Schools are open and more activities are moving indoors with the cooler weather, so now is the time to ensure your child’s vaccines are up to date. Vaccinated children are much less likely to be infected than …
A recent JAMA Pediatrics study confirmed what I see in practice as a pediatric primary care psychologist in Texas, one of four minority-majority states. The study reported alarming gaps between Black and Hispanic kids compared to white kids in attendance at primary care wellness visits—important appointments where children and parents can receive preventative and developmental services, timely immunizations, and answers to common questions. …
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of spouting the same old worsening childhood obesity statistics, applying the same dilute and sometimes broken strategy, not getting anywhere, judging myself as a doctor, then shifting the blame to my patient and their parents, then feeling powerless and defeated.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s a cycle we’re stuck in, and it’s not serving anyone, especially our patients.
I’m not going to go over the impact …
Boom! Crash! Ow!
That was the feeling of many pediatricians nationwide as we were hit in the face with the bomb of the COVID pandemic and all of the challenges it would bring, notably in the demands for mental health care. This skyrocketing demand led to the declaration of a state of emergency by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021 and a call for pediatricians to do more to address …
An excerpt from Parent Like a Pediatrician: All of the Facts, None of the Fear.
The internet broke parenting. In the “good old days,” parents followed a few basic pediatrician-approved rules—send your kid to school, give them healthy food, say “I love you”—and felt confident that they were raising their children …
As public and private schools around the country gear up for opening their doors to in-person learning later this month, it is important to acknowledge and accommodate the millions of children who deal with sensory processing disorders.
An estimated 5 to 16 percent of school-aged children have difficulties processing the senses either by overreacting or underreacting to sensory information. This includes not only the five senses of touch, …
“What does it mean when there are two pink lines?”
Her voice is hesitant, eyes searching to find mine across the counter. She knows what it means. I know what it means. I turn to the test to confirm and slowly put on a mask.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, my brother-in-law took to calling her “Miracle” because, despite none of us having any particular tie to organized religion, that’s …
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