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Little Kids Online: When Is It Safe?

Little Kid OnlineWhen should small kids get online? Is there a magic age? Is there a “best” way to start? What websites should small kids begin their online life with? And, most importantly, is it safe for small kids to be online?

Tune in as Dr. Gwenn talks about helping your youngest kids begin their online safely and smartly with you there as their earliest online guides. Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio here.

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

For High School Graduates: Education First, Career Second

GraduationIt’s here again: High school graduation season — that annual rite of passage for high schoolers coast to coast to embark upon that much-anticipated journey from home to that first true independent step outside the safety net of their childhood communities.

What always amazes me is the pressure high school kids feel as they embark upon this journey and how often I hear these kids express anxiety over not knowing what they want to be “when they grow up.” And, let’s not forget that we are still talking about kids — these are still teenagers, still developing and maturing. Read more »

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

Life’s Lessons And Playing Dolls

I’m not very good at the sort of play that grownups enjoy. I almost killed a goose once when I sliced and very nearly combined bird hunting with a golf tournament. I can serve a tennis ball — across the fence and into traffic. I once swung at a baseball no less than 20 times as teammates kept encouraging me.

However, I have a great imagination. Imaginary play was my delight as a child, and I rediscovered it when my own children became my born-again playmates.

Unfortunately, I felt inadequate when it came to dolls. Since my poor daughter, Elysa, is blessed with three older brothers, she’s always looking for someone to play dolls with her. Often, that someone is ‘papa.’ Read more »

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

Panic Attacks And The Nurse Who Witnessed Her Son’s Near Death Experience

My son accidentally ingested peanut butter yesterday.  He’s allergic.

He’s done this once before, which is when we found out about the allergy.  He had some really awful hives 3 hours after he ate that small bite of peanut butter sandwich but that was all.  His allergist told me that it would most likely never get worse than that.

He managed to eat some more yesterday.  I braced myself for the hives to come, and we dosed him with Benadryl.  An hour later he vomited.  The pediatrician’s advice nurse advised me to take him to the ER.  At the time I thought it was overkill.  He wasn’t having any breathing difficulties beyond the cough he already had (he has a cold).  He definitely wasn’t acting quite right, though, so off we went. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at code blog - tales of a nurse*

Hot Dogs And Common Sense Parenting

So the American Academy of Pediatrics just came out with a statement that–gasp!–hot dogs (and hard candy, peanuts/nuts, seeds, whole grapes, raw carrots, apples, popcorn, chunks of peanut butter,
marshmallows, chewing gum, and sausages)  pose a choking hazard to young children.

Maybe about a dozen children a year die from choking on hot dogs. So the AAP would like hot dog manufacturers to put warning labels on their products and consider changing the wiener’s shape so they pose less of a risk to young children.

I honestly do not know where to start. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at A Medical Writer's Musings on Medicine and Health Care*

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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