“My daughter was sent home from school with a note—they say she has scoliosis. I’m worried, is she going to need surgery? Will she ever be normal?”
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Last week I had to go to the hospital to get an MRI. My appointment was at 11:30 and as any outstanding member of the healthcare community would do, I arrived at 11:25. After I was registered, I was taken back to the imaging waiting area where I waited about 30 minutes before the tech showed up.
Almost a third of a century has passed since AIDS secured a top spot as one of the medical scourges of the twentieth century. In Canada, a diagnosis of HIV is no longer a death sentence and some, I suspect, presume the disease is something like polio, an historical infection that we no longer need to be concerned about. In Haiti this is certainly not the case. Even in Canada the infection continues to be a health care challenge.
So, I am going to digress from the usual sports medicine topics that I love, and talk a little about what to do when germs invade your house. I mean when your kid gets sick, then you get sick, then maybe your husband, and then your kid again. The whole process may last weeks (and feel like months). I’m basing this on recent personal experience that included a nasty upper respiratory illness for my daughter, a GI illness and then pneumonia for my husband, and two nasty respiratory viruses for myself separated by a week. This house is ready for spring.
Here’s a question: “My daughter was found to have a heart murmur at a well check. Is this something I need to worry about?”
Empathy, of course, is an important part of what we do. Right? I mean, how else could we restore health, help children reach their full potential and cure them if it is not with some sort of empathy?
I am going to start this blog by giving a list of the most commonly prescribed remedies I give out during the winter, also known as cough and flu season. These are the items I ALWAYS have around my house and I recommend to every one of my patients.
Influenza has hit, and hit hard. This year is shaping up to be one of the worst years in memory. Flu is now widespread in almost every state, and we may not yet have hit the peak.
In our experience, collection companies do very little to help out with collection efforts. For starters, pediatricians’ medical offices balances are generally small when compared to hospital charges, ER charges or even surgery charges.
