‘doctoring’

All Articles tagged ‘doctoring’

Autism Screening At 1 Year Check Up?

Posted on June 2, 2011 in: Infant, Toddler11 Comments

A recently published study proposed and evaluated a new autism screening checklist for the 1-year well baby check-up. I had a hard time getting my hands on the study (crazy but true–even pediatricians sometimes are boxed out of research studies), but read lots about it first in the press. I was excited about the potential for early screening. The checklist, designed to be administered by a pediatrician, intends to improve early detection and diagnosis of autism. The goal: to enable early intervention and treatment for at-risk children. It’s clear that early intervention improves autistic children’s outcome with autism spectrum disorders but the media may have provided false information and false hope. So before you expect this checklist at your baby’s next 1-year check up, let me explain what the study found, my concerns about the results, and how the checklist may become useful.

I take care in using any screening tool–any intervention can cause unnecessary harm. My main concern resides around false positives (when a test suggests there is a problem when in reality there isn’t) and the numbers from this study… Read full post »

Monday Phone Call

Posted on April 18, 2011 in: Doctoring & Healthcare, Mama Doc Philosophies29 Comments

I called my doctor today. Well, I called her office, of course. I needed an appointment to see her this week. First available appointment was next Friday (11 days). “Okay,” I  thought, settling, “That will do.”

But forgive me, let me rewind. The receptionist asked me for my medical record number. Before my name. It was the first question he had for me upon answering the call. When I didn’t have it, he started with my first and last name along with my birth date. We found my record without trouble. But he noticed it had been 5 years since I’d been in. This brought trouble.

I said, “I’ve been having babies, so my OB has been doing my preventative care,” to which he said nothing. “Well,” he said, “I’ll have to e-mail the doctor. She’ll need to agree to see you since it’s been so long.” It gets worse: “It’s going to be another week until we know,” he said. “She’s on Spring Break this week, so it may not be until next week that you hear if you can get in. Unless she is checking e-mail while away.”

Oh, I hope she’s not checking e-mail on Spring Break. Really. But, Read full post »

Play

Posted on March 14, 2011 in: Doctoring & Healthcare, Mama Doc Philosophies, Parenting, School Age, Toddler6 Comments

Recently, I started asking a standard question, exactly the same way, to children during their 3 to 10 year old check-ups. This wasn’t premeditated. Like all physicians, I go through phases of what I ask kids to elicit their experiences and beliefs, listen to their language and observe their development. I learn a lot about my patients from what they choose to answer. Both in their receptive language skills (how they understand me) and their expressive skills (how they speak–fluidly, articulately, with sentences) to their cognition (how they understand concepts and theories). No one talks as much when in the exam room as they do at home. Pediatricians know this (of course!), but these questions are a great way to learn a lot about a child’s wellness and get to know my patients. It’s also the part of the day I enjoy the most.

But when I started asking a recent question something became utterly clear. I’d say,

“What do you like to do at home?”

I expected the usual suspects. Things like, “Watch TV,” “Play the DS,”, or “Play with princesses or doll houses.” Not that I expected stereotypes, I just expected specifics. But instead, there has been a uniform, single-word response. Breath-taking. These children are all saying the exact same thing.

“Play.”

One word. Read full post »

An Amalgam In The Exam Room

Posted on February 25, 2011 in: Doctoring & Healthcare12 Comments

This post is an amalgam. Not the kind that fits in your back molar, but the kind that exists in my head. I’m trusting you have this type of overlapping-quilt-like-consuming-idea-thread that resides in your head at times and ultimately becomes thematic. How one event in life opens a new window into others and then suddenly there is sense and commonality in different spaces and experiences. You know what I mean? Evolving wisdom or simply experience, I don’t know. But I mean how something persists in your every-moment and helps you define meaning  with each new space and time. I’ll explain…

On Monday, a blog post of mine from last summer was published on Dr Kevin Pho’s blog, KevinMD. The post detailed my mom finishing her chemo and 5 words that her oncologist spoke one sunny afternoon: “You’re the picture of health.” The post is about the power of a physician’s words and how words spoken in the exam room linger in our life. In this post, I spoke about words we hear as patients (and caregivers) and how it’s essential that doctors detail wellness when they see it (rather than always focusing on illness). But reading the post again brought me back to last summer. More than once this week (let’s be honest, maybe like 6 times) I’d think about the post and well-up with tears. Maybe it’s the reality that we all face mortality or that I’ve been ushered into a new moment with my mom in her current remission where I am not filled with worry every day. Or maybe it brought me back to the emotion that was in the exam room that day, too. The same emotion I’ve typically divorced myself from. But,

It got me thinking, how was it I was starting a blog, helping my mom through chemo, moving to a new home, and caring for two little boys while caring for a panel of patients during that time? Why wasn’t I in a puddle of tears? Well…see…we do this. Parents (and children) do this ALL THE TIME. They muster incredible courage. Parents face fears. They exceed expectations and bust through boundaries for their children. For example, in the exam room, I tell parents we’re admitting their child to the hospital and then they listen, they thank me, they discuss.  They rise up to what is asked of them without their heart falling out of their chest and landing on the floor. They endure. They “keep it together,” they advocate. They share. Yes, they break down sometimes, too. Yes, they tremble. But they always do what they need to. They endure.

Which got me thinking, we really can be the balogne in the generational sandwich. Read full post »

500 Words on a $5M Fine

Posted on January 25, 2011 in: Doctoring & Healthcare27 Comments

No photo for this post. You can imagine why.

I’m a little stunned by the news that a politician in Florida is trying to stifle pediatricians from asking questions about guns in the home. My reaction is utterly predictable. Should I YELL IT or write it down or leave it up to your genius (and imagination)?

(silence)

The Skinny on the Florida Proposal:

  • Florida Rep. Jason Brodeur said “he has heard about a number of cases in which doctors asked about guns. He thinks the topic should be off-limits.”
  • Brodeur says he’s concerned about doctors asking patients about guns in the home. He’s concerned that information could get into the hands of the government or insurance companies.
  • Under the proposed legislation, a doctor could face a fine of up to $5 million or be sent to prison for up to five years for asking about guns in the home.

The idea of blocking the right to advocate for children is preposterous. Clearly pediatricians don’t like censorship, particularly when it gets in the way of protecting the lives of children. We don’t even like censorship from our patients; we like it when adolescents tell us the truth about having sex, doing drugs, and self-tattooing. We like it when parents tell us what truly keeps them up at night. Really. Transparency and a lack of censorship is an imperative ingredient in the doctor-patient relationship. The exam room is a space and place where you’re not faulted for telling the truth. Read full post »

An Extra Wince In The Exam Room

Posted on January 21, 2011 in: Infant, School Age, Toddler26 Comments

Yesterday, results of a survey on beliefs about vaccines circulated on the internet. The survey conducted last week, asked over 2000 adults if they believed vaccines, or the MMR shot, caused autism. I’m not an expert on surveys and I don’t know how reproducible these results are to all parents in the US. But the news caught my eye (along with many others) when they reported: “Just a slim majority of Americans — 52 percent — think vaccines don’t cause autism” That’s a kind-of-odd-double-negative-type way to look at it, I suppose. Or maybe a hopeful one. The results reflect that nearly half of adults in America may suspect or worry that vaccines cause autism; 18% saying they believe a connection exists.

Whew.

The survey reminds us of some of the Why. It seems on some level, it’s a breakdown in our education. While only “69 percent of respondents said they had heard about the autism-vaccination theory — only half (47 percent) knew that the original Lancet study [that linked vaccines and autism] had been retracted, and that some of that research is now alleged to be fraudulent.” And, the details of all the research finding no link between autism and MMR is even more deeply buried, I suspect.

Even so, the numbers surprised me. In light of all the writing in the British Medical Journal this month on the scam behind Andrew Wakefield’s original paper in 1998 making the claim, I’ve been thinking about where we all stand in our understanding of immunizations, science, and trust. More on that next week. But I really wouldn’t have said 1/2 of my patient’s parents believed or suspected in a connection between autism and vaccines. What percentage would you have guessed? Read full post »

The Injustice of Immunization Interviews

Posted on January 17, 2011 in: Doctoring & Healthcare, Infant, School Age, Toddler, Vaccines17 Comments

When Dr Wakefield interviewed on Good Morning America today, an injustice occurred. For children, I mean. And it occurred inadvertently I suspect. But I believe this injustice happens all the time when it comes to childrens’ health and wellness. What the media covers really changes how we think and feel about protecting and parenting our children. The media’s effort to inform and educate, just like that of physicians and nurses, social workers and ancillary staff, researchers and students, can get lost and misconstrued. ABC worked hard to inform us of the accusations against Dr Andrew Wakefield with a 2 minute introduction by Dr Richard Besser, a pediatrician and medical editor/correspondent. Yet when the interview was over, I was left remembering the myth.

Today I awoke to the boys asking for breakfast. After getting them to the table with a bowl of Life (always strange to offer a cereal named after our existence), I poured milk in my own bowl. Suddenly I realized that I needed to get the recycling and garbage to the curb. I donned my boots and a coat, ready to haul the can and a number of collapsed boxes to the curb. But just as I headed out of the door, the phone rang. It’s when the day went from the typical day (“making” breakfast and moving garbage) to a day steeped in really trying to understand. My mom was calling, she said Andrew Wakefield was about to be on Good Morning America. I hit my personal fast forward button, flew to the curb with the garbage, and got back inside with enough time to hear the complete interview.

Dr Wakefield interviewed on GMA with George Stephanopoulos who later labeled the interview “combative.” Mr Stephanopoulos was given a terribly difficult task: he was interviewing Wakefield on one of the most complex, emotional, and loaded quandaries of the last few decades: vaccine-hesitancy and Wakefields’s purport linking vaccines to autism. When Wakefield failed to deny any allegations and failed to discuss the significant research that refutes his own work, Mr Stephanopoulos had to defend science. Alone. George Stephanopoulos isn’t gaining popularity (read the comments) with the anti-vaccine crowd and even some who doubt what Dr Wakefield claims. Yet ultimately, the 7 minute interview with Stephanopoulos and Wakefield simply stirs the pot. I trust it will have huge viewership. I worry that this is, in part, why it was done. Read full post »

Treating Ear Infections With Antibiotics

Posted on January 14, 2011 in: Reader's Picks, School Age, Toddler10 Comments

New research on ear infections confronts a challenging conundrum: What should pediatricians do for a toddler with a real-deal ear infection? Treat with antibiotics or “watch and wait?” New research and a nice editorial published in The New England Journal of Medicine this week add to the stew of information about how to manage ear infections in young children. The new research confers benefit to using antibiotics at initial diagnosis of a true ear infection in children under age 2 or 3.

But wait. Seemingly simple, treatment decisions for ear infections are far from it. It can be easy for a pediatrician to prescribe antibiotics, yes. But those of us working hard to perfect how we care for children think long and hard prior to writing a prescription for the pink stuff. Current guidelines from the AAP (published in 2004) make us pause. The AAP recommendations embody the “watch and wait” approach in most children with uncomplicated, acute, middle ear infections between 2 months to 12 years of age. The AAP recommendations include:

  1. Proper inspection
  2. Pain control (Tylenol or Advil, etc). Ear infections hurt!
  3. Observation (waiting for 48-72 hours for relief)
  4. Treatment with high-dose Amoxicillin first and foremost if selected to treat.
  5. Return check after 48-72 hours if no improvement (then moving to treatment with Amoxicillin or changing to Augmentin if child on Amoxicillin)
  6. Prevention efforts (encouraging breast feeding, no bottle propping, working to decrease exposure to cigarette smoke)

But the “watch and wait” approach can be challenging for parents, pediatricians and family practitioners alike. Particularly with a child in pain, a gnarly looking eardrum, and/or a fever. Because of this, studies have found that the majority of physicians who see ear infections in the US don’t necessarily subscribe to these recommendations; we all really like to do something to make our kids feel better… Read full post »

Do You Believe in Vaccines? (Part III: Experience)

Posted on December 3, 2010 in: Infant, Reader's Picks, School Age, Toddler17 Comments

Helping families make decisions about their child’s health takes training, expertise, and experience. The training is standardized (medical school, residency, fellowship), and the expertise confirmed by passing board examinations and maintaining yearly CME (continuing med education). But the experience piece is ultimately unique for each physician. With each day in clinical care, patients teach, instruct, and shape how we understand wellness and illness. Through individual experiences with patients, physicians ultimately become who they are in the exam room. In medicine, despite the huge push to standardization everything from centralized phone calls to how much (or little) time we get with patients, individual doctors will fortunately remain unique. As patients, we still get to enjoy our physicians as people helping us through illness and injury.

This week has been intense. Wednesday, I spent the morning as a patient in the care of my incredible doctor. (I’m fine). She’s entirely instructive for me as a patient and as a physician; her bedside manner astounds. I believe she’s just very good at her job, partly because she’s uniquely experienced. I believe her experience being a nurse for many years before becoming a doctor really colors how she provides care–she gets it.

The week has also been intense because of this series. I’ve been thinking about immunizations, reading comments here on the blog, writing, and witnessing my patients’ responses. I’ve received many e-mails. Yesterday, I was at clinic for over 10 hours and like most days, immunizations were a huge part of my day. But I said things I’ve never said before…True synergy between my clinical self (doctor) and my writer self (Mama Doc), this experience is shaping who I am, in and out of the exam room.

Of course, experiences in clinical care (and living on planet earth) shapes how all pediatricians discuss and listen to families when discussing immunizations. Here’s the final segment in my series on asking pediatricians if they “believe” in vaccines. The 20 or so pediatricians who responded, talked about their experiences in representing vaccines. Additional comments are included in part 1 (emotion) and part 2 (evidence).

Experience:

Dr Kronman, a pediatrician and infectious disease fellow:

We don’t see these diseases anymore. I work at a premier tertiary/quarternary care facility for children. I have seen children die of influenza (seasonal, H1N1), pneumococcus, meningococcus, the late sequelae of measles, pertussis; I have seen Hib meningitis, tetanus, severe debilitating outcomes with varicella, cervical cancer caused by HPV, and severe rotavirus. This list goes on. But most people haven’t seen these things anymore. People don’t have to panic about their children in the summer becoming permanently paralyzed from polio, because we don’t see it anymore. And the reason? Vaccines. Read full post »

Do You Believe in Vaccines: (Part II: Evidence)

Posted on December 1, 2010 in: Infant, Reader's Picks, School Age, Toddler, Vaccines21 Comments

I asked a group of 33 pediatricians what they would say to the question, “Do you believe in vaccines?” while standing in line for coffee. I asked for their help in thinking about an effective, 2 minute answer.

This is part 2 in a series. For detailed information behind the why, read part I (emotional responses) or watch the video explaining how this came to be. As I said, I’m not a believer in scripts. I’m not attempting to suggest there is one, 2 minute segment for every family that will help. Part of the reason I started this blog was that in practice, I realized when I told families what I knew and learned in training, they listened. When I told them what I did for my own children and how I felt, they made decisions. Telling my story seemed essential.

(This is going to sound familiar) I don’t want to increase the divide between those parents who are worried or skeptical of the possible harms of immunization, and those parents, doctors, and experts and who believe in the benefits. Rather, I want to regain our similarities.

Today I’ve included responses from pediatricians that mentioned things that I experienced as “evidenced.” But rather than talk to you about numbers, causality, rates of autism, and the absence of thimerisol in all childhood vaccines (except multi-dose flu shots), these comments focus on the evidence that helps physicians discuss immunizations with families. There was a paucity of numbers in the responses from these physicians.

Dr Gayle Smith (@MDPartner), a general pediatrician in Richmond, VA says it best:

I’d say how much I wished pediatricians were better ‘rock stars’ with our message of prevention so we could be more effective in the media limelight.  I’d speak my own willingness to touch the hearts of the families I care for, to carry the bag of fear and worry for them, perhaps lessening their load a bit. Read full post »