When I was in college, I volunteered at a homeless shelter. Back then people were allowed to smoke indoors, and after a night shift I would leave with my hair stiff with cigarette smoke. Then I caught a cold, and a cough that…
In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise, playing hot-shot fighter pilot "Maverick," yells "I feel the need for speed!" He is of course talking about jets. In medicine, we are talking about stimulant use. Humans around the world…
I can still see my oldest daughter, 10 years-old then, with her forehead on the dinner table. She could not eat, her stomach hurt too bad. At that time she was having some school trouble, so my wife and I passed it off as…
It is no secret that doctor's offices and Emergency Departments are extremely busy these days. It is the "cold and flu" season, and RSV season, and that makes for a lot of sick kids. In other columns and blog entries, I have…
No one ever accused modern medicine of being good at naming things. There are so many jokes out there that whole web sites are devoted to making fun of medical terminology (Example: Definition of Barium: What doctors do after…
In the late 1940s and early1950s, families had two big worries. One was of a third world war with the horrible new weapon, the atomic bomb. The second was that children would get polio. Polio was on the rise. Every summer a…
I took care of a teenager this past year who suffered from too many antibiotics. Her doctor originally thought she had a skin infection and put her on the first antibiotic course. The skin did not improve, so he put her on a…
This happens at least once per month, the last time just three weeks ago. A teenager comes into the Emergency Department complaining of abdominal pain, vomiting in the morning for a week or two; and by the way, has not had a…
Its happening a lot this time of year. Parents rush their kids into the Emergency Department- for fever. When I get to the bedside, mom is sick with worry. The child, however, is walking about the room, opening cabinets,…
Being a new mom is hard. Most moms will tell you that the first months of baby's new life were a blur of fatigue and misery. You are tired from child birth and then from waking up every three hours to feed baby. You are…
In this election time, there is lots of talk about the high cost of government-funded health care- for medicare (for the elderly), and medicaid (for children). Democrats and Republicans argue about the burden these programs place…
Some people just don't know what to say to babies and toddlers. I remember a moment from a TV show, where a young and hip man was left alone with a little kid, and was plainly uncomfortable. Desperately fishing for something…
