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More Unvaccinated Children Cause Public Health Fears To Increase

Dr. Robert Sears’ The Vaccine Book, is, as Dr. Rahul Parikh puts it, “a nightmare for pediatricians like me.”

In a piece from Salon, Dr. Parikh brings his issues to the author. The controversy of the book is the so-called “alternative vaccine schedule,” which, as vaccine developer Paul Offit puts it:

…is “misrepresentation of vaccine science” that “misinforms parents trying to make the right decision for their children” in the Journal of Pediatrics. And yet, as a pediatrician myself, I have seen an increasing number of caring, reasonable parents hold it up like a bible in my practice (and that of my colleagues).

This post, however,  isn’t about the vaccine controversy — I’ll leave you to read Dr. Parikh’s excellent piece for yourself.

What I found interesting was a passage discussing the public health fears stemming from an increasing number of unvaccinated children. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

About The Children’s Medication Recall

The [recent] massive recall of some of the most popular [children’s] medications is unsettling, disturbing and concerning. Thankfully it was done as a precautionary move before any child was harmed and that there’s a sufficient supply of generic alternatives of the medications recalled.

Still, having 40 popular medications recalled by one of today’s most trusted pharmaceutical manufacturers rocks our confidence in the safeguards in place at the core. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Gwenn Is In*

Killing Lice At $500 A Head

What’s one of the fastest growing healthcare fields? A professional nitpicker — as in the profession of picking lice out of hair.

In a recent New York Times story, it’s becoming apparent that parents will do anything to get rid of lice. Part of it is the stigma associated with it, part of it is the “ickiness” factor. As a parent myself, I certainly understand the sentiment. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

When A Patient Outgrows A Childhood Disease

At a [recent] session on caring for adult survivors of pediatric diseases, Bradley J. Benson, FACP, and Niraj Sharma, FACP, had some interesting statistics to share.

For example, more than 90% of children with a chronic or disabling health condition are expected to live more than 20 years, meaning they’ll eventually need an internist’s care, and every year more than 500,000 children with special healthcare needs turn 18.

As Dr. Sharma noted, “We’re not talking about a handful of folks.” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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