Pediatric House Calls Pediatric House Calls

Discipline, Parents, Kids and “Natural Consequences”

February 3, 2018

Both "parenting" and "childing" comes in several different styles

I got a kick discovering an “atlas” of parenting and discipline types (according to Laura Hamilton at UC-Merced CA) who tallied three categories: Bystander parents with limited kid contact; Paramedics swooping in for major problems; and, Helicopters always hovering all the time.

I say a kick because although entertainingly descriptive (and perhaps embarrassingly accurate to a degree) it just seems to leave a WHOLE LOT out of the equation—and ignore half of it entirely: the kid!
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Elizabeth Blackwell

January 29, 2018

We’ve been following a list of the 50 most influential physicians in history compiled by a medical magazine and have reached number 32 with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

A lot has been written about her, I suppose mostly due to the fact that she was the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. No small feat; but, it’s difficult to describe how to call it: serendipity? Chance? Accidental? Stubbornness? Tenacity? Luck?
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How To Talk To Teens and Other People

January 24, 2018

Celeste Headlee: 10 ways to have a better conversation

The term “conversation” does imply two way talking and sharing; but, not at the same time of course. The problem is that often conversations are nothing more than two people taking turns talking while giving different speeches. Stephen R. Covey observes that: “most don’t listen to understand. Most people listen with the intent to reply.” That won’t do if you really want to “talk” to a teen and NPRs Celeste Headlee tells you why… along with how to do it more effectively.

See the video…

Juvenile Diabetes and ProBiotics – Yogurt, Bacteria and Children

January 15, 2018

The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study holds a deep interest for me—really everything about type 1 diabetes. And has, actually, from the very first clinical years of medical school.

Service with Dr. Marv Rallison in pediatric endocrine clinic gave me many early career “firsts” which continued into leading diabetic clinics of my own during my residency and obtaining grants for early studies of hemoglobin A1C (glycosylated hemoglobin)—which eventually revolutionized care of diabetic children and has become the current mainstay of management.
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Do Plants Have Brains?

January 10, 2018

Neuroscientist Greg Gage, the co-founder of “back-yard brains,” says his mission is to train the next generation of neuroscientists by taking graduate level neuroscience research equipment and making it available to kids in high schools and middle schools. In this talk he begins by asking “what has a brain” and goes from there with demonstrations that will challenge your preconceptions.

See the video…

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

January 5, 2018

Despite dealing with it—and often even causing it—the medical profession woefully neglected the slightest consideration of “dying” until 1969 when Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote “On Death and Dying” about her experiences with terminal patients.
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Happy New Year

January 1, 2018

Happy New Year From Pediatric House Calls

A New Year, Yippie!

From DJmed.net – Pediatric 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.]

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Parenting Is Saying No

A parent ideally should be loved by their child and respected by their child—but not necessarily liked by their child. At least not all the time…

Amblyopia and Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip

There are two things which a trained pediatrician usually checks for more frequently than other physicians who see children: Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip(DDH) and Amblyopia (lazy eye). Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip, or DDH (formerly CDH), occurs when the hips of a new born infant are either inadequately or inappropriately developed at birth. The […]

AIDS: The Legacy of Ryan White

I hope you know who Ryan White was. Through no fault of his own he became the unwitting poster boy for persons with AIDS at a time when public hysteria about the disease was doing almost as much damage as the disease itself. We need to remember him in order to keep a perspective and sensitivity as medicine struggles to keep up with the ever-increasing numbers of newly discovered diseases.

The Legacy of Ryan White

Excessive Night Drooling in a Two Year Old

[A mother is worried about her two and a half year old daughter who sleeps with a binky and drools through the pillow at night.] (more…)

Parenting A Child With Asperger’s High-Functioning Autism →

[Site no longer active – It’s camped on by an internet “flipper” trying to make a killing. I even tried to use the “wayback” archives to try and resurrect the page to include here; but, alas, it didn’t work!] Being a parent to a child with Asperger’s High-Functioning Autism is at least high-adventure parenting if […]

Lina Rogers, First School Nurse →

[Site no longer active – camped on by some recruiter] At the behest of an altruistic humanitarian doing work with the poor in the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side, Lina Rogers RN entered the schools to see if she could make a difference in October of 1902 – dressings were changed (rat bites), […]