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Sports Injuries In Kids On The Rise

Several studies presented this week at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reported that in spite of a dramatic rise in pediatric sports injuries, there is still a lack of education, awareness and early treatment.

More adolescents are participating in year-round sports without seasonal breaks and are playing on multiple teams simultaneously, leading to a growing number of musculoskeletal injuries – both traumatic and from chronic overuse.

Kids’ bodies are still growing and they are just as susceptible to overuse and traumatic joint and extremity injuries as adults. The rate of injury suggests that we might be pushing kids too hard and the damage could last a lifetime. Read more »

This post, Sports Injuries In Kids On The Rise, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

How To Tell If A Child’s Ankle Is Broken

There are rules that have been advocated for doctors to use to determine the need for x-rays (radiographs) in the setting of a possible ankle fracture (broken ankle). The purpose for using rules is to avoid unnecessary exposure to radiation. In the wilderness, there is not likely to be an x-ray machine available. Therefore, the rules might be useful to give the rescuer (or a parent) more confidence about what clinical presentation is likely to be or not be a broken bone. This would be important in terms of deciding whether or not to allow weight-bearing, such as would occur if a victim needed to walk out under his or her own power. Read more »

This post, How To Tell If A Child’s Ankle Is Broken, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

Twitter-Assisted Diagnosis

I have many reasons to use Twitter. One of them is that it’s quite easy to get feedback from doctors who also use Twitter for communication. Now one of my stories was featured in the New York Times.

Some people are even using Twitter for more urgent questions. Bertalan Meskó, a medical student at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, wrote a post about a patient with mysterious symptoms: “Strange case today in internal medicine rotation. 16 years old boy with acute pancreatitis (for the 6th! time). Any ideas?”

Within hours, specialists worldwide had responded, suggesting gallstones, lupus or growths on the pancreas. One of the suggestions helped the doctors with a diagnosis.

“It would have been impossible to find that specialist through e-mail, because we had no idea who to contact,” Mr. Meskó said.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Teen Suicide: How To Recognize Kids At Risk

The coverage about Michael Blasil’s suicide raises important issues about how to really help depressed teens…and where to look for resources in our own communities.

In many ways, the coverage about the death of Marie Osmond’s son was excellent. The experts on all the news shows were spot on in discussing teen depression and suicide and all the news stations have posted important information for families on their sites. However, what was missing was the reality of how challenging it is to get care. All the experts  I heard this morning made comments such as “if your child is depressed for 2 weeks or more, you need to get that child into treatment because treatment does work in over 90% of the time.” Read more »

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

How To Make Your Own Sugar-Free Gummy Worms

OK, so this is not a medically brilliant post, but I thought I would share! For a low sugar snack, you can try making your own gummy worms! Thank you to whomever developed this fun treat!

Ingredients

  • 2 packages sugar free Jell-O
  • 2 packages plain gelatin
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • (optional) If you like sour gummies, you can add a packet of Kool-Aid to the ingredients

Directions Read more »

This post, How To Make Your Own Sugar-Free Gummy Worms, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

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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