Category: Pediatrics

How junk food marketers exploit children’s impact on family food choices

Would you let a clown influence what brand of car you buy? How about choosing your household appliances based on the advice of a cartoon bird or tiger? Probably not. But young people in your family will likely let cartoons and mascots influence where y…

Juggling medicine and motherhood: a doctor’s journey

When my children were in preschool, parents often commented at school events that they did not know I worked or was a physician. I never knew how to handle that double-edged sword. Ostensibly a compliment, their surprise at a working parent’s pre…

How early intervention can transform a child’s speech development

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ recent decision to move away from the “wait and see” philosophy to a more proactive intervention when dealing with childhood obesity got me reflecting on how “wait and see” is still used…

Adolescent medicine at risk [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! Join Meredithe McNamara, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist, in discussing the challenges adolescent medicine physicians face due to the current political climate. We explore…

How a teenager with seizures became the face of trauma-informed care

A teenage girl was found alone, having a seizure on a bench outside our clinic’s front door. She had never been inside our clinic, but it was our fault she was seizing. The office manager from the dentist’s office upstairs found the girl as…

The surprising impact of medical students on patients

There are a few clinical scenarios that stand out to me from my undergraduate medical education. I completed a combined MD/MPH program, and I remember coming back from the year of public health, inserted between years two and three of medical school, f…

Closing the empathy gap in health care [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! Nicole Rochester is a pediatrician and advocate for improving the doctor-patient relationship. She shares her personal experiences and discusses the importance of intentional human connecti…

Gender-neutral registration for unresponsive individuals

When registering individuals who are unresponsive to stimuli, unconscious, unaware, or lacking alertness, it has been customary to assign them the names John Doe or Jane Doe, based on physical characteristics, while also assigning their sex accordingly…

An elder mentor’s message to new medical students

For 21 years, I have had the privilege and honor of coaching and mentoring medical students. Most of this mentoring takes place in my outpatient internal medicine-pediatrics practice, where each student spends two to three days with me every week for a…

5 tips for ending office visits on time

The visit is winding down. You’re getting ready to go, hand on the doorknob, saying goodbye. And then you hear, “Doc, one more thing.” Or perhaps you’re more familiar with the patient who has a laundry list of issues all to be a…