Category Archives: Pediatrics

Lessons From Conducting the Path-4CNC Virtual Convenings

Last week, we detailed the findings of virtual convenings we held in North Carolina to improve care for children with complex health needs (CCHN). Here, we share our takeaways about the process of planning, holding and following-up on the convenings. We also outline the specific steps other leaders, innovators, and advocates can take to engage… Read More »

Engaging Communities to Improve Systems of Care for Children with Complex Health Needs

Children with complex health needs (CCHN) are a unique pediatric patient population. They have chronic medical and/or behavioral conditions that need ongoing health care. They use a disproportionate share of hospital resources. And they face greater social challenges when compared to other children. In North Carolina (where we work) and across the country, CCHN fail… Read More »

Pediatric Payment Models for Child Health Services

By | December 11, 2020

How could alternative pediatric payment models help to address children’s broad health, social, and developmental needs? This post delves into funding and financing challenges and potential solutions. I recently collaborated on a report on alternative payment models for child health with colleagues from the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and Mental Health America. The… Read More »

Deportation and the Traumatizing of a Generation

By | June 18, 2020

With less than five weeks to go before welcoming a second child, the patient sat in my exam room in tears. By all accounts, this was a routine appointment at the end of a routine pregnancy. Except on this particular day, clutching family photos from their recent baby shower, the patient shared with me that… Read More »

School Health Policy Series: Part 4 – The National School Lunch Program: Wasteful or Worth It?

By | December 3, 2019

Do you recall the last time you did not have your morning cup of coffee or tea? Without it, you might be moody throughout the day and not get done what you intended. How about the last time you skipped lunch? Were you able to focus on your work with a rumbling stomach? Now imagine… Read More »

School Health Policy Series: Part 2 – Athletic Trainers in Schools: An Unexpected Battleground for Scope of Practice

By | December 2, 2019

It is impossible to bring up a discussion of school sports without mentioning the great bogeyman of sports-related injuries: concussions. The number of concussions has been on the decline in recent years. But a recent estimate suggests that there are still about 4 concussions per 10,000 athletic exposures in high schools. An athletic exposure is… Read More »

School Health Policy Series: Part 1 – Everything’s Coming up ACEs

By | November 14, 2019

This month, the website www.ACEsAware.org is set to launch. It will train healthcare workers to screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences (known as ACEs) in primary care clinics, but is that scope too narrow?  Should school workers be included too? The website is part of the work of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris in her new role… Read More »

Introducing a Special Series on School Health

By | December 2, 2019

This month, The Medical Care Blog is hosting a series of posts about the importance of school health. Following up on our 2016 series on the childhood roots of inequity (read the first in the series here), we are dedicating our Thursdays this month to posts that reflect on the health challenges that confront schools.… Read More »

Instead of Building a Wall, Let’s Insure America’s Children

By | January 7, 2019

President Trump wants $5 billion right now for his border wall, and another $7 billion (or maybe $13 billion) later on to finish the project. What else could we do with that kind of money? Here’s an idea: with $12 billion we could cover ALL 3.9 million uninsured children in the US today, and still have a… Read More »

“What the Eyes Don’t See” – A call to look beyond our clinic walls

By | September 6, 2018

Last Tuesday I saw eight patients in my morning clinic; I felt like I did a lot. I saw Ms. S, a sixty-two-year-old lady with high blood pressure and diabetes; we chatted about her cats while I checked her feet and titrated her insulin. I treated my 9:30 am patient with some antibiotics for a… Read More »

What’s Next? The Ongoing Crisis for Children Taken from Families Seeking Asylum at the US-Mexico Border

By | August 3, 2018

This year, we’ve seen more than 2,000 children separated from their parents, who were legally seeking asylum in the US. Most were from Central American countries in which crime and unrest place many at risk for violence. These children were taken from their families by US government employees between April 19 and May 31, 2018,… Read More »

Promoting Primary Prevention of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

By | March 21, 2021

“Neonatal abstinence syndrome” (NAS) sounds deceptively innocuous, given that it is literally infant drug withdrawal. It is usually caused by prenatal exposure to opioids but can also result from maternal consumption of other substances, like alcohol and antianxiety medications. Common symptoms include excessive high-pitched crying, fever, sweating, irritability, vomiting, diarrhea, rapid breathing, sleep disturbances, and poor… Read More »

The childhood roots of health inequity: Part 3 – Dr. Kerith Conron

By | March 13, 2017

This post is the third in our series focusing on presentations that were delivered at a special panel session at APHA16 on the childhood roots of health inequity [part 1, part 2]. Our third presenter, Kerith Conron, ScD, MPH, is currently the Blachford-Cooper Distinguished Scholar and Research Director at The Williams Institute of UCLA’s School… Read More »

Childhood roots of health inequity: Part 2 – Dr. Donald Barr

By | January 19, 2017

Exposure to toxic stress in childhood is associated with adult health inequities. Last fall, the Medical Care Health Equity Committee organized a special panel presentation on the topic at the 2016 APHA Annual Meeting. This post is the second of a series of posts.