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.
I have been asked several times this week about tonsillectomy – whether or not a child should have their tonsils taken out by surgery. Usually the question is in response to a sore throat of some kind, whether or not there is an infected tonsil.
There are just so many variables (i.e. whether it is acute or chronic, allergic or contagious etc.) that my reply must be largely individualized; so, a short article cannot adequately cover the topic.
Read more→
“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 news and sold enough copies to truly (and dramatically) make a difference in the research effort. What struck such a chord with the millions of viewers? Jonah’s struggle against a rare disease he didn’t deserve; or, Dylan exercising the pure faith of a child to be a true friend – you decide.
I’ve already given a link to an article describing how to be a friend to someone with a baby in the NICU; but, I’m a bit between a rock and a hard place with this article.
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What would you think if your child, who had been toilet-trained for many years, began wetting the bed but was otherwise healthy and in no discomfort; or, if your little girl, 2 1/2 years old, began refusing to sit on the toilet, had a low-grade fever, and was extremely irritable; or, if your 15-year-old boy told you that he had pain on urination for the past four or five days and was now passing bloody urine; Read more→
Despite the provocative title, this talk is really about safety and parenting approaches. That said Mr. Tulley does have an “every mans” approach to the stifling “avoid risk of any sort” some parents are coming to take with their children. He also does have a sense of humor and is definitely not a “helicopter parent.”
See the video…
I have been holding off writing a summer article until the weather made it clear that it really was summer. I don’t seem to have been quick enough on the draw, however, there was no spring to warn me.
When the weather warms up we begin seeing less contagious illnesses like colds, ear infections, chicken pox, etc. (very warm areas decrease illness in summer as people go indoors for air conditioning.)
Read more→
[Site is active but the page I wanted you to see has been taken down. Really sorry, it was a great story.] Perhaps you’ve had a baby in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU); or, perhaps you’ve had a friend in that situation. If so, you’ve probably had a chance to contemplate the varied needs a parent experiences.
How do you be a friend for someone in the NICU? Here are some possibilities and a novel approach to a “virtual baby shower.”
[Page no longer active – which makes me sorry, you should have seen it in it’s day! Now just a generic help page]