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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Children’s Athletic Warmups

Warm-ups do more than just prevent “stiff muscles,” they actually decrease the risk of injuries and increase performance.

Medical Breakthroughs, Unaccepted, Rejected and Attacked (at first)

Human nature as it is, doctors not excepted, change is fought against tooth and nail if it at all offends either ego or pocketbook. This is a bit of history lesson on a few of our hard-won breakthroughs where not only the idea, but the discoverers were unaccepted, rejected and even attacked for their discoveries.

Helmets Don’t Prevent Concussion – Here’s Why

What is a concussion? Probably not what you think it is. In this TED talk, David Camarillo (former football player now bioengineer) gives a lot of great information about concussions and how/why what we are doing to prevent them is letting us down. It’s apparent that our safety standards bodies are also inadequate and are actually preventing new protective innovations. Watch with interest, then I’ll explain the one weakness of his talk I’m disappointed in.

Tonsillectomy – criteria for performing

[Two grandmothers are at odds over their grandsons tonsillitis and possible tonsilectomy.] (more…)

The Fading Art of the Physical Exam →

Link to article entitled “the fading art of the physical exam.”

Awesome As A Chocolate Bar – True Friendship →

“Chocolate Bar” means awesome to Dylan Siegel, the boy who wrote CHOCOLATE BAR, the book. At just 6 years old Dylan wrote it to raise money towards a cure for his best friend Jonah Pournazarian’s rare liver condition, Glycogen Storage Disease (GSD) Type 1b. His magnanimous act of friendship “went viral” into spots on prime-time […]