Category: Pediatrics

The value of an immigrant child

Stefania was a 17-year-old Russian girl who presented herself to a port of entry in the United States seeking asylum. Stefania’s journey to this point was an unimaginable one. In her home country of Russia, she was a happy high school student living wi…

How a young girl helped me find the light in pediatrics

“You’re going to fall in love with her,” the nurse warned me, as I stood outside my eleven-year-old patient’s room ready to wake her up for surgery pre-rounds at 5:30 a.m. I offered back a tired smile and knocked on the door timidly. “Naomi?” I whisper…

How a young girl helped me find the light in pediatrics

“You’re going to fall in love with her,” the nurse warned me, as I stood outside my eleven-year-old patient’s room ready to wake her up for surgery pre-rounds at 5:30 a.m. I offered back a tired smile and knocked on the door timidly. “Naomi?” I whisper…

The first time I felt I truly helped a patient

November 2017. I was on my pediatrics rotation at a local community clinic. My attending asked me if I could see Johnathan (identifying information and event details altered to protect confidentiality), an eight-year-old boy who has been increasingly f…

How youth sports might be a risk factor for heart disease

“If only there was just one more creative way to increase my child’s sugar intake,” said no parent ever. As a pediatric cardiologist, I spend much of my day counseling parents of children with obesity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. I tell them to i…

The Wild West approach to PICU practice

I spent my early and mid-career years working in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at a large academic center. We did almost everything except for a few things esoteric at the time — small bowel transplants, a few kinds of experimental surgery. I’…

What you need to know about acute flaccid myelitis

You’ve probably seen it on the news – a rare, polio-like illness is causing cases of paralysis in children. Here’s the latest info, based on our best current knowledge from the CDC. Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a sudden illness that causes weakness …

What you need to know about acute flaccid myelitis

You’ve probably seen it on the news – a rare, polio-like illness is causing cases of paralysis in children. Here’s the latest info, based on our best current knowledge from the CDC. Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a sudden illness that causes weakness …

Medicine is just a job

A couple of years ago, I read an article by Dr. Profeta at LinkedIn called “These four words that may offend you … may also just save you.” He was invited to talk about burnout in medicine and did not get a warm reception. “It&#…

Everything you ever wanted to know about croup

Imagine this scenario. Your two-year-old son has had a runny nose for a day or two and an occasional cough, but seemed no worse to you that everyone else in his preschool class. Two hours after you put him to bed you hear him coughing, only this cough …