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Archive for the Category »Medicine «

Aug
04
First day of Siggraph exhibition
Ami Chopine

Forward: I wrote this on Tuesday and forgot to hit that all important publish button. So the yesterday that follows here is actually monday.

Let me back up a little, to yesterday morning. Vladimir and I walked in, looking for the e-on software booth. We’d seen it several times on the map, but walking in one doesn’t always know at what entrance they’re coming in at, so it can be difficult to orientate. The e-on software people are pretty good at the display thing though. I had only to look up to see the cube with the logo on in and Vue 8.

There would be our Siggraph “home” for the duration of the convention.

The exhibition hall at the time was filled with wooden crates, moving equipment, and the accouterments of putting displays together. Over the course of the day, all the vendors finished getting everything set up, and soon purple carpet was rolled out for all the

This morning, as exhibitors, we entered the hall early to make sure we had everything in line for the demos. I was the first one up, showing Vue 8 Infinite. I think others were nervous for me as well as myself having a few butterflies. Everyone was assuring me that not many people would be there since it was early on the first day. 9:30 arrived and the doors were opened for all attendees. That was quite a sight, to see a wave of people sweep into the hall.

I began my presentation, and little by little every seat was filled, then several people were standing around. Wow. But really, the number of people were never a factor in my nervousness. I have been so excited to get to play with the program, and was familiar with all the new features, but was nervous as to whether I would get every point in the presentation. I think I did okay though. I’ve now seen the same presentation on Vue 8 Infinite by both Vladimir and the other presenter, Nicholas Pelligrino. I did three of the four presentations I prepared myself, and also Vue 8 xStream. Feeling a bit adventurous, I opened Maya and showed off the biggest improvement in Vue: that of the terrain editor. Then I opened up two more applications and ran Vue 8 xStream in them. It all went very smoothly and I was quite pleased with that particular presentation.

As well as doing those, I walked around and answered a lot of questions. Like I had suspected yesterday, it was quite enjoyable to work with everyone at e-on.

I also managed to see a couple of other booths. One was a motion capture booth and the other a 3D printer one. Very cool stuff. I may have more information about some of the others there in the coming days.

Category: Geekatplay, Medicine  3 Comments
Nov
04
Lost respect
Ami Chopine

I have to say that Lance Armstrong used to be a minor hero of mine. But the recent ads for an energy supplement that have been popping up everywhere and are now spamming my inbox has made me lose a lot of respect. Well, is failure in marriage was also a flaw. But now I question his integrity as well, which of course brings into doubt his claims of not using enhancers during his racing.

Live Strong is a great attitude for life and overcoming illness or even living to the end, but he has marred even that by aligning this organization with the energy supplement one through wearing the Live Strong logos in the ads. I fear this may act as encouragement for alternative medicinesnake oil men taking advantage of the desperate in the treatment of cancer.

These recent actions speak more of “Live for Me and Damn Anybody Else” than any ideal he previously stood for.

Category: Culture, Health and Fitness, Medicine  3 Comments
Feb
27
More corporate talk
Ami Chopine

Great excuse for a new post: long comment by my mom in my last post. It’s a good read and further demonstrates the corporate problem.

In a lot of sectors, the free market no longer works because consumers no longer have a choice. This is especially true in health care. IF we are employed, our employer buys the insurance.

I don’t want government to run health care either, mom. And I had a big argument with a friend of mine about that very thing. She is convinced we need universal health care even if that means the quality of some of our health care goes down. I don’t think she realizes what that will really mean.

You complained about the prices the hosptials charge non-insured patients. There are two things involved:

Insurance companies negotiate prices that are, sometimes, actually below the cost of the service. Then the government’s EMTLA, where hospitals MUST accept cases in the ER if the patient thinks it is an emergency, has lots of non-paying people come in for non-emergent conditions. But the ER can’t easily deny them, because that puts their accredation at risk and makes them open to a lawsuit. And many people are starting to use the ER for primary care, most especially those on medicaid who never have to pay any bill.

Medicaid and Medicare are the biggest negotiators and the ones most responsible for prices that barely or don’t cover costs. Private insurance often follows their set prices.

The non-insured patient who will actually pay their bill, that is why it is so expensive.

That and, of course, the corporate running of hospitals. My post wasn’t limited to insurance companies.

Some of the remodelling going on at our hospital is the result of a very quickly growing community. A few years ago they opened a cath lab, bringing that technology 30 minutes closer to everyone in our area, which is really a boon especially as our neighborhood ages. They are undergoing the second increase in their women’s center in 10 years, because they are full to capacity and beyond too often.

But then, they put up this stupid sign. I don’t know how much it costs, but it doesn’t benefit the patient one bit and I question how many patients it has brought in. It breaks down every few weeks too, and they fix it. Oh yeah, and it is advertising their great new imaging machine.

But then, this hospital didn’t have a chance against the monolithic IHC here. Another corporation bought them up. To stay open, they have to advertise and build just to keep up against the IHC bully around here. IHC is a non-profit but it does not shift it’s profit in favor of the poor or uninsured who are willing to pay. It is either dodge the bills or pay the high prices. They have many for profit subsidaries.

My answer, is that it is time to reasses public corporations as a whole. The system is broken. It used to be that people invested for long term and often for the general good. Utilities were concidered good investments. Now they want a quick buck. Lots of pressure is put on a company to cut costs or increase prices in order to increase profits.

Let’s see what this gets us. Officially, we are insured but our deductible is 2,500 now. Something is going to have to go really wrong before insurance starts paying out. Oh yeah, and those high deductible plans are more expensive than the no deductible plans of a few years ago. We looked around, hoping we could find a better one. The game is no longer fair. The insurance companies are posting record profits. 

Because the insurance company had to make more profit, they hiked up the rates. Because the company my husband works for had to make more profit (at the urging of its shareholders) his employer negotiated lower costs for the company, and higher costs for the workers. Without giving the workers a raise. We can probably manage it. But they also employ a very large number of factory workers making far less than we do.

What if, rather than paying for insurance directly, the employer payed an insurance allowance and let consumers shop around? Insurance prices would drop. This would allow the free market to reestablish itself in favor of the individual consumer. What if states did not allow insurance companies to deny health coverage and required scaled rates for lower income families? Like car insurance? What if the government capped insurance rates, but allowed insurance companies to accept donations from people who were better off to help those who weren’t?

Category: Culture, Medicine  Leave a Comment
Feb
26
Corporate Aristocracy
Ami Chopine

“The for-profit health insurance situation in America is an embarrassment and a disgrace.  We need to provide as a country basic and essential health insurance coverage for all Americans, without the profit motive.” - Dr. Joseph Scherger

I’m not sure if I’ve said this on my blog, but I’ve said it in real life. I think it is ethically and morally wrong for parties who provide no service to make money on healthcare (or the denial of it). The corporate structure simply does not work in the context of healthcare.

When the primary managers of insurance companies and hospitals are investors, they are more worried about profit motive than humanitarian action. They tend to do two things: hire more administrative managers to ‘keep down’ costs and maintain corporate protocol or whatever. (I’ve seen it happen in other companies that transition from private to corporate.)  And then they require not just a profit margine, but growing profits! This is especially true of public corporations.

Businesses that are public corporations cannot have ideologies that put the customer first. They have become dependent on capital from parties who do not care what they are doing, only how much money they are making and further, if the company will make even more money later on. What happens is that profit becomes the product that the company is selling.

When this is paired with things that are directly connected to the quality of life of the customers, it will degrade that quality. It creates a state in which people are profiting off the suffering of others. And that is wrong.

Category: Culture, Medicine  3 Comments
Jan
31
The mind/body connection
Ami Chopine

There has been an interesting discussion about complementary and alternative medicine between bloggers Lynn and #1 Dinosaur. One thing I’d like to point out in this discussion is why the mind/body connection is not alternative medicine. By alternative medicine, I mean therapies that patients pursue that have little to no scientific backing.

It is not because doctors or scientists become suddenly open minded that a therapy which was previously alternative medicine becomes accepted and part of conventional medicine. It is because the scientific testing they conducted about that therapy backed it up. So when something like biofeedback turns out to be effective in certain situations, it is part of the scientific process that it becomes accepted for those situations.

Applying those therapies to illnesses for which they are inappropriate and/or not proven puts the practice right back in the ring of non-evidence based or alternative therapies.

Lynn said that because biofeedback, hypnotherapy, and guided imagery were mind/body phenomena, this meant that they were automatically alternative. I believe that part of her definition of alternative is that it addresses the spiritual. The culturally known triune of mind/body/spirit links mind/body to spirit in many people’s thinking. Under that influence, anything that would be mind/body would also be spiritual. Another interpretation of mind/body that could give it a special meaning is the ‘mind over matter’ theme which is sometimes thought of in telekinetic terms: the mind can manipulate matter without any physical connection to it.

So let’s put those two interpretations of mind/body aside and concentrate on the tested and observed connections.

The brain is connected to the body via the nervous system and through chemical messengers such as hormones and endorphins. This is a two way street: the brain sends signals to the body, and the body both replies and sends information to the brain.

So, for instance, a person wants their muscle to relax, they send a signal and it relaxes. If there is nervousness or anxiety in them so they don’t feel psychologically comfortable enough to let down their physical guard, to stop being ready at any moment for fight or flight, then they have a difficulty sending the signal to the muscle to relax. The problem is not in the body, but in the mind. So when the mind is reassured, then it can send the signal to the body so the muscle can relax. There is smooth muscle (along digestive track, contracts and when relaxed dilates blood vessels, etc) which is not under direct conscious control, but under control of the autonomic nervous system. But that part of the brain is under the influence of our conscious brain. When we are consciously stressed, the autonomic nervous system doesn’t know why. It just responds. Our blood pressure rises, our heart beats faster and we breath faster. We tense up, ready for action, even if there is no physical action that can help. Again, if we reassure our conscious brain that all is well, then the autonomic nervous system responds as well, bringing our body back into rest mode. 

So these mind/body therapies: hypnotherapy, guided imagery, biofeedback, are all just different methods of helping the mind relax and send signals to the body that all is well. There are a lot of interesting things that are occurring here, but none of them are magic.

The ways in which this can help in medicine are both far reaching and limited. Being relaxed and at peace can help healing by encouraging a resting state where good blood flow reaches extremities and compromised areas, and oxygen and nutrients are utilized for rebuilding rather than reserved for possible survival reaction (stress: fight or flight). There may also be a reduction in stress hormones that have long term damaging effects. The added benefit is that the patient feels subjectively better and may require less pharmaceutical intervention for pain relief.

But this is as far as those therapies go, in regard to physical healing. There are no energy fields at work, manipulating the matter.

Psychological healing is a different kind of thing, but again – no energy fields magically change a person’s thought processes. Just ask God.

As for Reiki, I would say it is probably like a physically enforced guided imagery. The patient has to have some belief in that particular story to work, as I imagine (I’m hardly an expert) that the imagery that works best is different for every individual. There is no physical healing going on that couldn’t be achieved by some other relaxing method. Any psychological healing occurring is more likely to be due to the human interaction involved in the therapy than any hand movement.

One other thing to understand is that feelings of tingling or warmth during Reiki can easily be attributed to the ‘guided physical imagery’ we are experiencing. Just like we can see an image in our minds (like a memory, or a picture we are painting that doesn’t yet exist) we can ‘feel’ a sensation in our minds. That experience seems less imaginary to us because we have an existing physical reference, our body, that is sending real signals at the same time. There is also a hyperawareness of the area that is being worked on. To further muddy the situation, when a subject in a study is recalling their experience, their memories are influenced by their personal beliefs.

The mind/body connection is real. It is scientifically backed up. But it is not proof of the spiritual, of alternative medicine, or anything that requires magical thinking in order to work.

 

Category: Culture, Medicine, Religion, Writers and Bloggers  8 Comments
Oct
06
Homemaking, medicine, polygamy and strong women.
Ami Chopine

Sometimes, I wish there was less I wanted to do. For instance, I don’t decorate my house much, nor sew, nor do lots of crafty stuff that I actually think is fun. I enjoy this kind of thing. I want a pretty house decorated with things I made and kids dressed fantastically in clothes I made and a scrapbook and to give out handmade cards always. I want to make the place I live in appear to be the thing of beauty that is in our hearts.

But I want to write more.

One of my heroes is someone named Ellis R. Shipp. There is a lot that biography leaves out, of course. One of the things was that she was always, always curious about the world around her and always nurturing. Her taking on the calling to become a doctor was very much in line with her personality. Brigham Young called several women to go back east, learn medicine, and come back to practice and educate. It was actually a church calling extended to these women. Ellis was troubled to leave her children, but passionate about the work.

One of the reasons she could even dream of this career was that her husband was a polygamist. Ironic? Not what you thought polygamy was about? In this day and age where early Mormons practiced polygamy, women were encouraged to pursue their talents. In order to support such families, some of the wives had to work too. The sister wives more inclined to homemaking would take care of the children. These arrangements were actually very friendly towards women and their diversity of talents. The kinds of jobs they took were still very much of a ‘womanly nature’ though. Teaching, medicine and midwifery, sewing, etc. But the fact of the matter is that women under these circumstances were among the most progressive of all their peers across the world. They could vote well before their counterparts back east, until the US federal government took that right away for several years. They started the first women’s organization (and now the oldest). The Women’s Exponent (1872-1914 independent) and The Relief Society Magazine (1915-1970 church run, started after TWE failed due to financial difficulties) were magazines run by and for women.  

So, polygamists good? Well… the divorce rate was pretty high too. That says something about how it often turned out. In fact, Ellis Shipp’s sister wife, the second wife of her husband, divorced him. I am sure that one of the reasons Wilford Woodruff recieved revelation that it was time for this practice to stop, was because many men were practicing it unrighteously. By that, I mean, rather than marrying women to provide husbands for them (at a time when there were a shortage of men and lots of widows) it was becoming tradition to, say, have your daughter marry into an ‘old’ and well known (if not rich) polygamous family. Men were entering into polygamous marriages without being called to. You see, polygamy only works well under very limited circumstances and and when men are very righteous. Once those have expired and/or men start to act on their lusts, (Both of these happening at the time it was discontinuted in the LDS church) then polygamy becomes very destructive to women and it is time to stop. The ‘fundamentalist’ mormons of today who practice polygamy give us good examples of just how bad it can get when practiced unrighteously. (Kingstons, Greens, Warren Jeffs)

But even in modern times, it can be practiced righteously. I once heard a former police officer who had been investigating these societies in Utah say he had met a man who was “practicing righteously”. Basically, this was a Christian man who had married and was a good husband to several women who wanted marriage but were more or less unmarriagable due to disability or appearance. Odd and warm fuzzy like all at the same time, yeah?

So from a legal standpoint, should we allow polygamy? My answer? Yes. This article pretty much describes my thinking.) Should we practice it? No.

Category: Culture, Intercultural Marriage, Medicine, Writing  One Comment
Jun
03
PGR 2.4 is up and it’s Awesome!
Ami Chopine

Adventures of an Awesome Mom is hosting Pediatric Grand Rounds today. She did a fantastic job, and I especially appreciate her words about Dr. Robert Lindeman, a pediatrician we’d all be happy to take our children to.

I have to say, I’m in awe of this mom. She deals with difficulties I can’t even imagine as she mothers a child with a heart defect. She is out there blogging to educate the rest of us about what its like, the normal and the unusual. And I imagine it is good for other moms like her to have a community to turn to.

Category: Blogging, Medicine, Parenting, Uncategorized  One Comment
May
31
Flea revealed in Boston newspaper
Ami Chopine

This morning, I got quite a comment on the PGR 2.3. Flea has been unmasked in a newspaper. I was floored. Then I got angry. Not at Flea, but at the plaintiff’s lawyer. What a spin chick. This is why so many of us hate litigation lawyers. They get gain by harming people. Of course, this makes them the natural predator and foe of doctors.

From the article, : “[Mulvey] was appalled that readers in the blogosphere who knew little or nothing about the case rallied to his defense.” 

Actually, Alison, whose comment gave me the news, sounds pretty much like the lawyer in the newspaper article and what I expect comments of people who never read Flea’s blog to be, so I’ll address her directly since she chose to share her opinion so well and succinctly.   

“I’m appalled by the comments I’ve read supporting Flea in his litigation – by people who donn’t know what the litigation was about, and didn’t bother to check.” 

 It is you and it will sadly be the general public, who do not understand the nature of Flea’s blogging. He was anonymous. We could not check. But Flea’s articles, sharp as they’d sometimes been, had always consisted of sound science. Moreso, the frustration he often expressed was a mark of his compassion for the children under his care. In the blogging world, he was a model of integrity and compassion.  

If you accuse of bloggers who defended him of ’not having the whole picture’, you must accuse yourself of the same thing.

To the lawyer, Mulvey, who claims to have read his entire blog: where is your integrity? Is it truth or power that you love? Is it compassion or money?

Let me ask you: Does the family have their little boy back? Are they healed now? Do they feel better about the loss?

This isn’t win/win. Only a litigation lawyer who knew it was a weak case would say that. It’s lose/lose.

Flea was being sued for medical malpractice for failing to diagnose diabetes in one of his 12 year-old patients, who died within six weeks.

I cannot comment specifically on the misdiagnosis, because I am not a medical professional. I am sure someone qualified will step up to the plate. However, I do know know some generalizations: Diagnoses are not always obvious, even for diseases as common as diabetes. I watched a “Mystery Diagnosis” show on DHC once about diagnosing a kid with diabetes. That kid went for YEARS without the diagnosis. The difference between him and the unfortunate death of the 12 year old under Flea’s care was, I am thinking, luck. My own dad went for years without being diagnosed. Okay, so I did get specific. But I might be wrong and I’ll wait for better experts. The point is, the outcome could not have been predicted and it appears from the news article that Flea saw him only once regarding the symptoms that allegedly diabetes could have been diagnosed from, and six weeks later the boy died. For that, he was being sued?

Hindsight is 20/20. Flea did his best with this child, under the apparently very limited circumstances he had. One cannot fault the doctor for a stroke of bad luck.

That boy lost his life, and a family lost their son. During the trial, Flea blogged about the trial, ridiculing the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s lawyers and the jurors.

We are aware of that. We read the posts. We did not know specifics, (that would have been unethical) but we read not only his angst with the trial, but the fact that he felt awful about the death of this child. Did you read that, Alison and lawyer? And now that it is down, no one in the general public will read it, but we know. 

In my opinion that’s a tragedy that makes Flea at best a jerk, and at worst a dangerous doctor.

What do you think goes on in the head of doctor’s being sued when they know they did everything they could have? When they, themselves can see the diagnosis 20/20 and are devastated? Do you think they are as calm as the demeanor imposed on them by their role?  Do you think they appreciate the smack down they are getting? Do you think they don’t get frustrated when people misconstrue everything in order to get money? Do you think the face they must show the jury and public reflects what is really going on inside of them? Do you think they like the lawyer who is there to take them down or the jury who isn’t paying attention?

Do you think they aren’t human?

Flea was not arrogant. People too often mistake anger and frustration for arrogance. From the facts that I can gather, Flea is not dangerous, either. That is an emotional overreaction that will only harm him and the community he serves. 

No, Flea’s only mistake was in blogging about it publicly and in real time. I think his intentions were good: this is what a doctor really feels and goes through when he is being sued, but the execution of it was poorly thought out.

Good luck to him.

Category: Blogging, Medicine  14 Comments
May
20
Pediatric Grand Rounds 2.3
Ami Chopine

Welcome to the latest edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds. Let’s get down to business.

About a Flea

a flea in her ear

We’ve lost Flea, one of PGR’s greatest supporters. We are thinking he crawled into some lawyer’s ear and got caught in the wax. Hopefully, he’ll dig his way out.

I wish I could do more than this, but here is a brief chain of what others have said about Flea and Fat Doctor, who also shut her blog down. It isn’t just the posts I’ve linked to here, but all the comments on those posts that bear record of how much the medblog community loved Flea and Fat Doctor.

I’ve probably left a lot out. If you have one or know of another one, please contact me either through a comment or my email so I can add it to the list.

What is the role of the doctor in the child’s life? What is the role of the child in the doctor’s life? 

It was Charity Doc that made me think about this. He isn’t a pediatrician, but at Crack City ER, he sometimes treats kids. It was his recent post about helping an abused child that made me think about how far a doctor needs to go in order to treat a child, IOW, remove a child from harm. Some doctors seem to feel no need to get beyond CYA, while others will do everything in their power. Scroll down the comments to find out the ending to that story. It is definately worth it.

To simply do whatever needs to be done is not simple at all. It fills up all of our life. It lifts us to the heights and draws us into the depths. PGR founder and ardent believer in Unintelligent Design Dr. Clark shares with us how he has grown into the role he has in the lives of the children and families that he treats.

It isn’t just the people who are children now that affect us, but the children we were that impacts the adults we have now become. Val Jones brings us a story from her childhood demonstrating that well before she got her MD, she practiced compassion.

The assertive pediatric patient: Paige is eight years old and was born prematurely. How do doctors deal with this child who fully understands her condition? Stacy, Paige’s mom and writer of The Preemie Experiment tells us.

I’m lucky enough to have a healthy child, but there is an issue I’m trying to figure out.

Dealing with Illness

Jen from Unique But Not Alone is the mother of two girls with an inherited liver disorder called Alpha-1. She brings to us a story of loss that is felt not only because a dear little friend is gone, but because of how closely connected his death is to her daughters and how deeply it touches her own fears.  

When medical procedures on your child are a regular part of life, it isn’t just worry that plagues the parent. A whole new dimension in parental self doubting is opened up. Moreen gives us a glimpse into that altered universe in The Wait and the Wonder.

Walter of Highlight HEALTH gives us some advice regarding how to use the internet to become an empowered patient and advocate when you or your child has a complex illness.

Dealing with Evil Bureaucracies

What happens if you don’t get your baby screened for a metabolic disorder and one is discovered later having already wreacked havoc? What happens if you do and one is discovered at the time, so that early dietary intervention prevents damage? Laura, having some Adventures in Juggling, knows that the answer in both cases is that the insurance companies will try to get away with paying out as little as possible and use bureaucratic red tape to get away with it. She relates to us the battle being waged in California to remedy the situation. She also gives us a head up on PreemieCon 2007, which is not an evil bureaucracy.

The Shinga Files

Dame Shinga graciously bestows us with an abundance of paediatric links from the blogosphere. In her own words:

Tara presents an interesting case where a little boy with eczema developed complications after exposure to his smallpox vaccinated father who did not take adequate protection measures.

Dr. de Asis is reassuring on the issue of asthma medications in pregnancy

Interesting take on vaccine delivery systems for rotavirus – which is particularly tricky because of its likeliest demographic for those who need it most.

We don’t have these shoes in the UK (I don’t think)…

Ex Utero explores one of his favourite interests…”the natural course of events will be as neonatal medicine and obstetrics continue to improve survival of very low birth weight infants”.

Overview of a study on PTSD and resilience in children

Sandy has an embarrassment of choice – I liked this one about a programme that had a negligible impact on childhood obesity despite all the optimistic reports

Dental problems that come with prematurity and the emotional issues of being a mother who can’t ‘just hug it better’.

AADT gives an overview of reports on the effects of parental drug abuse on children and the likelihood of developing anxiety, depression and related conditions.

Dad of Cameron gives a thorough look at whether scientific claims are matched by scientific data in a recent paper on mercury in baby teeth – autism etc.

Dr. Novella says that there is still no association between autism and mercury in vaccines

Regards – Shinga

Thank you so much, Shinga, for all the work you do for PGR. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed. There were some great posts. I enjoyed putting together this edition. I’d like to thank Flea for all of the wonderful posts he wrote, for his cheer and passion, and for his kind words about me last week.

There are no hosts on the schedule for the next PGR. The totally bodacious and adventurous Awesome Mom will be hosting. Step up to the plate, bring some traffic your way, and meet some great members of the pediatric community. Contact clarkbar2019 AT yahoo DOT com.

Category: Blogging, Medicine  10 Comments
May
20
A doctor’s light touch
Ami Chopine

At the end of the visit, my pediatrician smiled as he stood up, saying, “Well, Toddler Boy, we’ll see how your career goes at your three year checkup.” A part of me wanted more, though. Oh, I had no concerns about my child’s health. But he had just demonstrated how advanced he was. At barely 24 months, this little boy knew his shapes, colors, numbers, both uppercase and lowercase letters, and all the sounds they make. The pediatrician had watched this development through the past couple of years, sometimes having to go back to his office to grab a more advanced toy to assess things. I guess I hadn’t demonstrated enough of my feeling of being a little overwhelmed.

I knew that education wasn’t really the doctor’s job. I’d just hoped that maybe he’d have some leads. But as I reviewed the visit, I realized that our pediatrician, a man who has been in practice for 27 years, trusted me. He knew I would be able to figure it all out. He knew I would do a good job.

And that is all he really needed to do for my little man.

One other thing I noticed through all the checkups: The doctor was never present during vaccinations. One time in particular, he still had business with us after the vaccinations. He waited just outside the closed door while the nurses and I got the job accomplished, then came back in.

Toddler Boy gets very nervous around the nurses, but really likes the doctor. I imagine this happens with most of the young kids. As far as shots go, the doctor is the good guy. He didn’t do it. No one saw him. I feel kind of bad for the nurses.

Category: Medicine, Parenting  2 Comments
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