In this case, CPS called upon child abuse pediatrician Dr. Elizabeth Woods, a new director at the Child Abuse Intervention program at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma. Although she told me on the phone she had “14 years of child abuse experience,” in actual fact, Dr. Woods resume tells a different story. She completed only a residency in general pediatrics in 2010 and has not completed a child abuse fellowship.
It seems perverse to deliver healthcare services at a place called the Minute Clinic. The kind of physician-patient relationship that can be cultivated in a minute is not one to write home about. While CVS and Walgreens see geriatric primary care as yet another untapped gold mine, for me, the relationship memorialized in Norman Rockwell’s “Physician” resonates as much today as it did 90 years ago. Seamless ecosystems are no match for a “willingness to place professional expertise at the feet of childhood magic.”
Society must endorse the idea that a woman must consent prior to being touched. And when there is a power differential, consent may not meet the necessary criteria to avoid allegations of sexual assault. In fact, it might be equally plausible that Mr. Lauer “lured” Nevils to his hotel room as it is that she showed up of her own volition. I ask this question because of my own experience of having been lured by a physician colleague to his home in the evening under false pretenses. It is a mistake I have never made again.
Studies demonstrate that students with asthma who have access to SBHCs had fewer emergency room visits and lower hospitalization rates. Mental health services decrease school absences by as much as 50% among those with 3 or more absences in a six-week time period and an 85% decrease in school discipline referrals.
Can We Have a Reasonable Discussion on Vaccines?
Gun violence has become a public health epidemic. Despite countless deaths in mass shootings over the last 2 decades, the Dickey Amendment—a provision inserted into the 1996 spending bill which blocked federal funding for research on gun violence—remains on the books. While every politician, media pundit, and policy expert “know” the solution, the answers are not that simple.
Is the notion of adult males having sex with tweens considered quasi-acceptable by society at-large? After all, Epstein told the New York Post in 2011, “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender,’…It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.” The pediatrician in me finds this notion reprehensible. The mother in me is scared beyond belief. Teenage girls are still children. It is high-time our society started seeing them that way. Bagels, however, will never quite be the same for me, again.
Structural racism is the biased societal approach to housing, education, employment, healthcare, and criminal justice. As scientists study racial health disparities in depth, a picture begins to emerge that there are bigger, stronger, and more insidious forces at play than economics alone. The psychological stress generated by unfair treatment may trigger a biological series of events that lead to worsened health outcomes in the long term.
While Washington lawmakers had good intentions, their actions were largely symbolic, because they overlooked a few issues that will interfere with this law having its’ intended effect. According to the Washington State Constitution, “absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief and worship shall be guaranteed to every individual…” And to that end, the new vaccine exemption form replaced the philosophical exemption with a new box for parent-initiated religious exemption.
I will never forget her face. She was only thirteen. She had a significant cognitive disability, a result of a brain injury at birth. She found her way to my clinic one late Friday afternoon in July almost two decades ago. Her mother was a nurse and noticed her daughter had not had a period in the last two months. Her pregnancy test came back positive. I wanted to cry.
