As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one morning, I noticed an article with a title starting with: “When Doctors are Wrong” with a picture of a newborn baby with a breathing tube in the NICU. I immediately opened the article and star…
Category: Pediatrics
How to raise a resilient child
An excerpt from the Mayo Clinic Guide to Raising a Healthy Child. If you look it up in the dictionary, you might see the term resilience explained as having the ability to bounce or spring back into shape after being compressed, stretched or bent. Tree…
The scourge of the pediatric urgent care fellowship
I am one of those lucky souls who actually likes their job. Since I completed my pediatrics residency two years ago, I have been working in urgent care settings. What’s not to like? I get to see a wide variety of patients, I’m always learning something…
Why an asthma action plan is so important for children
Asthma is a common childhood condition. Estimates are that around 8 percent of all children have it. The incidence had been steadily increasing for many years, but some recent data suggest the burden of the disease in children may have leveled off over…
Do after-hours call centers send too many children to the ER?
A large number of pediatric practices these days use after-hours call centers for parents who have questions about a sick child. I’ve been looking around to find some data about how common this is, but my sense is that the majority of pediatricians use…
The basics of the MMR vaccine from a pediatrician
As the U.S. endures its largest measles outbreak in 25 years — one that’s almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better — we’re getting a lot of calls and questions at my office. What’s measles, what’s the best way to prevent it…
What to do with disparaging doctors
Doctors who disparage, or even ridicule, what parents tell them are, fortunately, rare. Nevertheless, sometimes parents may infer from what the doctor says or how he acts that he does not value what they are telling him, even though he did not mean to …
What to do with physicians who don’t explain
How doctors treat patients’ need for information has changed significantly over the past decades. Sixty years ago medical practice was much more paternalistic than it is now, although some would say it continues to be so in important ways. Still, not t…
Are antibiotics needed for your child with an ear infection?
The common practice in this country (although not everywhere — Europe, for example) has long been to treat all acute middle ear infections (otitis media) with antibiotics. This is not necessarily needed. We now know that for many children another…
The horrors of the diseases that vaccines prevent
In October of 2016, I returned to Bernard Mevs Hospital in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 hurricane, had touched down near Jeremie only four days prior. Hurricane Matthew caused significant devastation with over 2 million people…
