pediatric housecalls Robert R. Jarrett M.D. M.B.A. FAAP
Hello, and welcome to Pediatric House Calls. I am… A Physician board certified in Pediatric medicine with Clinical experience including caring for infants, children and teens – well these days mostly children and teens up to twenty-one; An Administrator experienced in top medical management for several national health insurance companies; An Author of health care manuals, newspaper columns and even children's stories; A Business Medical Consultant for drug companies, insurance companies and
physician practices; A Veteran of the US Navy in the Vietnam era;
And… I make House-Calls.
[About this time every year things get a bit hectic around the homestead and we need to take a little hiatus. Hope you and everyone you care about have a perfect holiday season—wherever you may be! See you again in the new year.]
We’ve already talked about medical proverbs such as “cold hands, warm heart,”“feed a cold, starve a fever,”“drink eight glasses of water a day,”“cigarettes will stunt your growth” and that “apple a day”… thing.
But there are some we left out because the list was getting a bit long for one sitting. I’m going to take another shot at listing a few more, some from the “dawn” of medicine and others which are beginning to hit up against the way doctors are practicing medicine these days! Read more →
You use paper towels to dry your hands every day, but chances are, you’re doing it wrong. In this enlightening and funny short talk, Oregon attorney Joe Smith reveals the trick to perfect paper towel technique.
If nothing else, doctors are a bit concrete. We love boxes, categories, lists and most of all… answers!
So, things a bit askew, catawampus, off kilter or out of place make the average physician a bit nauseous if not outright wonky and catapulted into a search for the rationale. You give us an aphorism and we’ll design a research study. Read more →
In the U.S., old Ben Franklin published a series of articles in his Old Richard’s Almanac which, even if he didn’t come out right and say it, people took as the truth and became Medical Proverbs still with us today.
Perhaps, because a lot of these medical proverbs had their roots in vintage manuscripts like the bible and early writings of the pioneering healers/doctors throughout time.
How about it? Should we take sayings like: “early to bed…”, “an apple a day…”, “pay attention to seasons…”, “doctors’ best book is the patient”, “health checks don’t add anything meaningful…”, “eight glasses of water…”, “cold hands…”, “cigarettes stunt your…” and “feed a cold…” as truth or with a huge grain of salt?
Let’s do some proverb-busting!
4 Posts in "Proverbs" Series
Proverbs Series: Intro/Index – 1 Oct 2018 Vintage medical proverbs: are they true or, like some, just "old wives' tails?"
Heart, fever, smoking, water and apples – 6 Oct 2018 "An apple a day," "cold hands, warm heart," "feed a cold, starve a fever." and "cigarettes stunt your growth" are all medically related proverbs (myths)—are they true? This curated series of posts all deal with proverbs of a kind, which are explored and declared either "confirmed" or "busted."
Seasons, patient learning, remedies, eating and health checks – 1 Dec 2018 This post continues our exploration of medical proverbs only now let us turn our attention to doctors and what they do. Are physical exams really necessary anymore? Should doctors really pay attention to the seasons? In true Mythbuster fashion, let's confirm or bust them.
sleep and health – 18 Feb 2019 Previous posts have discussed medical proverbs but there is one glaring omission that needs to be addressed: does "early to be and early to rise REALLY make you healthy, wealthy and wise"?
[I have to tell you, this article about boy’s underwear in puberty has been an interesting one to write. Mostly because I usually write about documented recommendations with scientific support and this topic is pretty much a collection of known, assumed and extrapolated suggestions from information in areas sometimes only tangentially related. Therefore it still leaves a lot of room for personal preference]
I answered a question of a 16 year-old patient who had been the subject of some school-girls’ highly personal and intrusive questioning: “What kind of Underwear do you wear? boxers, briefs or commando?” He wrote into an answer-line: “Which is best?” and I told him I’d think about it and see if there was an informed answer that covered all the Tanner Stages. Read more →
Here is professor Jack Horner, the technical advisor for the Jurassic Park movies and the inspiration for the film’s lead character, Dr. Alan Grant, who says: “I’m extremely dyslexic… reading is the hardest thing I do.”
We should all be so afflicted! He loves to talk to sixth-graders because they love dinosaurs… almost as much as he does; and he’s going to tell us how to build a dinosaur!
Santa knows where you are – even in hospice
