I’ve been working with the latest electronic medical record (EMR) for almost a year now. You know the one. There are many positive changes, to be sure. It has helped me more than a few times with calculating doses for kids’ medications. I can now easily check in on my patients’ progress when they are admitted to the hospital. And, of course, the notes are far more legible.
But what do the notes actually tell me? Sadly, sometimes, not much. Continue reading
I gotta say, the daily commute has been feeling a bit hairy lately. Seems like I’m passing accidents more frequently. Watching a bit more weaving. I can’t be sure that it’s all related to distracted driving, but sure seems like a lot of it is. Every day I witness drivers looking down at phones at stoplights, missing the change to green. I even saw a smartphone mounted to one car’s driver side dash and the driver scrolling through websites during rush hour traffic on the freeway. Scary stuff. Continue reading
Over the past few years, in leiu of goal-oriented New Year’s resolutions, I’ve chosen words to serve as a guide for my year. Inspired by a few writers I admire, I’ve found this practice to be very meaningful for me. And setting it in writing here on the blog last year was quite powerful. I found that the words Decide, Attend, and Play stayed in the fore throughout the year. I went back to the post a number of times to gauge how I was doing. And, although I can’t say I always succeeded in meeting my own expectations, I do think that setting these intentions did affect the flow of my year. So, here are my words for 2014. Continue reading
Many thanks to all of you who have joined me here at My Two Hats in 2013. I continue to derive much joy from writing here and to learn so much from readers’ insights. I am ever grateful for the connections and friendships that My Two Hats has brought me.
Here’s a quick wrap-up of 2013. Continue reading
“Why shouldn’t quiet be strong?
And what else can quiet do that we don’t give it credit for?” -Susan Cain
*A while back in clinic a nine-year-old’s mom came in concerned about her son. Turns out that at the parent-teacher conference, her son’s teacher had said, “Your son is very quiet in school.” Even though her child was excelling academically, had great behavior, and truly enjoyed going to school, this statement stayed with his mom. She worried about it. Because in American society, being quiet, or “shy”, is not often seen as a positive quality. I hope that will change. Continue reading
This is the second post in a two-part series on fever in children. Last week Dr. Cara Barone provided excellent information regarding why children get fevers, how to measure your child’s temperature, and whether to worry or discuss with your physician. This week I’m back to review when and how to treat fever in kids. Continue reading
I’m delighted to welcome guest Cara Barone, MD, FAAP to My Two Hats this week. Dr. Barone is a pediatrician and mother of two. She did her pediatric residency in the Boston Combined Pediatric Program and a fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston. She happily practices general pediatrics at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in the Palo Alto, CA division. Dr. Barone has written a great post about fever. Please read on to learn more from her about this very common child health concern.
Every day in clinic I talk about fevers, fever-reducing medicines, and taking temperatures. This parental concern has been an absolute mainstay throughout my pediatric career and transcends all age groups in pediatric medicine. Continue reading
I’m not in the habit of writing book reviews here, but I can’t not tell you about this book. I had high hopes for The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and it easily exceeded them. I devoured this book.
You may have heard about The Fault In Our Stars due to its huge popularity among young adult lit fans or via the hype that’s building about the upcoming film.
But that’s not why I think you should read the book. Continue reading
hack (verb): to create a usually innovative solution to a computer hardware or programming problem or limitation
This past weekend I again had the opportunity to attend the excellent Medicine X conference. Despite the conference focus on the convergence of medicine and emerging technologies, the main message I left with had nothing to do with technology. It had to do with listening. Continue reading
I’m hoping this won’t lose me any readers but I have a confession. I like pop music. During my commute each day I admit I often make the mind-bending switch between NPR and the Top 40 station. Even if you trend toward a more high-brow music collection, perhaps you’ll allow me that these tunes are catchy and they’ve got a beat. But lately I’m feeling fairly conflicted about it.
I didn’t watch the VMAs. But you’d have to be living under a rock not to get the general idea of what went on. And here’s the thing. This is nothing new. Pop music has been sending our kids mixed messages about women for a long time now. But, we’re pushing the envelope. And I don’t much care for it.
Here’s what I mean. Continue reading
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