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.

Immunization v. Vaccination: A Story of Gullibility, Fear, Despicable Avarice and Scams – Part 2

Peter Salk recieving the Salk Polio Vaccine from his father Jonas with the support of his mother

We’re (by that I mean I and I’m dragging you along with me) trying to make sense of and understand this mess we’re in about immunization; and I’m telling you of how a colleague decided to deliberately immerse himself in the vaccine-hater cottage industry to try and understand how otherwise seemingly rational parents make decisions which are clearly not in the best interest of their children.
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Immunization v. Vaccination: A Story of Gullibility, Fear, Despicable Avarice and Scams

Vintage photo of young girl with polio in an iron lung

If you’re like me, all this hysteria about immunizations is a bit hard to comprehend let alone understand. My very early memories concerning health were about friends and classmates becoming crippled and dying of polio and mumps and measles and whooping cough!

I remember taking cans around to collect “pennies by the inch” and news stories about children all over the nation sending dimes to the president and the “children’s March of Dimes.” Why were we so fearful, so troubled, so united, so focused? Were we all stupid? Deluded? Conned? Was it all a myth?
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Yoga For Children and Stress Reduction

What do you do with the rest of your body while your mind meditates?

One of several “most interesting” aspects of medical school for my graduating class was had in the psychiatry department when they taught us the science behind and techniques for hypnosis; or, as I’ve heard others refer to it: selective relaxation or meditation. This article is not about yoga per-se but about its usefulness in aiding meditation or relaxation.

I’ve been asked about and used clinical hypnosis (markedly different than “stage hypnosis”) on a few selective patients with uniformly favorable results; I’ve taught a whole lot more patients the techniques of selective relaxation.
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Meditation For Kids and Time-Outs

Teen using a yoga pose as meditation

I had a friend post an article on his blog about how to cope with tinnitus. He’s not a medical person but has intimate knowledge of the problem from the standpoint of what actually works, and he discussed how meditation helps him.

I communicated with him a little about it and told him that I’d been working on a post about meditation for this blog for about two years. Actually, it’s been sitting in the “possibles” pen for that long, awaiting a bump into production.
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Donny Osmond, Matthew English – Any Dream Will Do

You know, it doesn’t happen very often… well almost never actually. But on a rare occasion one runs across something on the internet which, by all the laws of eternity, just MUST be posted and seen. Such is this Donny Osmond performance with Matthew English—a boy, who just happens to be hearing impaired. Watch Donny carefully keep his face in front of Matthew so he can understand more readily. Unless you were looking for it, you may have missed Donny realizing that although Matthew knew the song, he was having trouble finding the key; so, he gently joined him with the pitch but subtly so as not to call attention. And, finally, watch how he meaningfully, and gently backed out of the duet to let him realize that he COULD and WAS doing it on his own! See if YOU don’t begin to feel that the REAL interaction was between Donny and Matthew alone and you are just being privileged to be witnessing such a celestial-level fatherly episode of kindness.

I’m terribly sorry.

The Daily Mirror and Facebook are both very happy to host this post BUT ONLY if they can wildly push their advertising agendas. So, I’ve taken both of their links down and spent a lot of time looking for a not-so-avarice source for this wonderful post. If you’ll go to this link Donny Osmond and Matthew English Duet it will be displayed on the CDN server’s page. You’ll also need to click the audio icon to turn up the volume, and you can press the ‘full-screen’ icon to see it better. It’s worth the extra effort!]

See the video…

5 Immunization-Preventable Diseases Coming Back

Vaccine rates of vaccine-preventable diseases 2013

Of the thousands of diseases we’ve got to contend with there are only about 24 which are immunization-preventable. Perhaps it seems like more when you’ve got your kids to the doctor for well child care but it’s not.

The CDC and WHO keeps track of these things and that’s all we’ve got. They also keep track of how well we’re fighting them off and guess what—THEY’RE COMING BACK! We seem to be loosing the fight!
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Vaccine Hero’s

Bill and Melinda Gates, perhaps today's most philanthropic people

Ever since Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, gave a talk about “Vaccine Hero’s” I’ve seen more and more “vested interests” jumping on his bandwagon with their own hero lists.

Gates had a list of seven person’s, 6 medical related and 1 business, who he is continually grateful for as he and his wife attempt to ameliorate great inequities and suffering around the world in the area of vaccines and disease prevention.
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