In Dr. Suneel Dhand’s article, “We can do a better job with hospital discharge paperwork,” he advocates for physicians to do a better job at creating discharge instructions that are more appealing and easier for patients to understand. After all, coher…
My son, Luke, was born 18 months ago with myelomeningocele, the most severe form of spina bifida. Luke and our family have faced many challenges: premature birth at 26 weeks due to complications after in utero surgery for spina bifida; a 171-day stay i…
While riding shotgun in the family minivan on the way home from a fall break water park trip, I received the following text message: I thought of you today! One of the residents here had done a great job with a complex (and really sad) labor and delive…
At the age of 17, my younger sister Elisabeth noticed a change in her body — enlargement of the front of her neck. “I just thought I was building muscle from working out,” she innocently rationalized. A series of laboratory tests and imaging followed a…
I swiped this editorial cartoon by Steve Sack from the redoubtable Dr. David Gorski’s blog, who goes by the nom-de-web of Orac. Recent epidemiology shows reducing the fraction of vaccinated children in the population rather promptly leads to a resurgen…
For those of you who have been following my story since this summer of 2018, you will remember that I quit my nine-to-five job to pursue a career in public speaking on a more semi-permanent basis. I started working essentially full-time with a national…
For many pediatricians, the thought of providing care to children who live outside of gender norms is daunting. But it is time for the pediatric community to awaken to the realities of our world. We need to stand behind our gender-expansive and transge…
I have worked most of the last 20 Halloweens in the pediatric emergency department (ED), so I’ve seen how a split second can ruin your child’s holiday. Here are some things you can do to plan ahead and avoid the ED. 1. Avoid trip hazards It’s a recipe for mishap. Your child is in a […]
Have you ever felt so cold? I mean bone-chilling cold. I don’t mean the same kind of cold that northern winters can leave you feeling. I am talking about working in a hospital that is climate-controlled, and you are undoubtedly shivering. I still remember my first day on the job as a neonatology fellow. I […]
I first posted about this subject a couple of years ago but it’s so fascinating to me I’m writing about it again. I happened to run across this study containing some amazing information. It’s from a publication called The Journal of Voice. The link is to the abstract — the complete article is behind a paywall but I […]
