Painful, tense acral bullae in a 12-year-old girl
March 1st 2019A healthy 12-year-old girl presents to the clinic with 2 days of low-grade fever and enlarging, painful, tense bullae on both hands. She had recently been diagnosed with streptococcal pharyngitis and was being treated with oral cefixime.
7 ways to involve parents in care
March 1st 2019Often we treat a child without considering the parental role, as when we prescribe an antibiotic to be multiple times a day. Other times we do need to consider the parents. Here are the thoughts from Jon Matthew Farber, MD, on how parents view, interact with, and advocate for their children in these situations.
Teenager with ankle pain and swelling
March 1st 2019A 15-year-old adolescent Caucasian male with no significant past medical history presented to the clinic with gradually worsening left ankle pain over the past 2 weeks, ever since he started his football practice. He complained of dull aching pain at the lower end of his left leg for the past 4 months, which was slightly relieved by over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). He twisted his left ankle and noticed further worsening pain, which prompted this doctor visit.
Too few teenagers are screened for depression
March 1st 2019Whereas rates of screening for adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD) have increased in recent years, they still are insufficient to address the current mental health crisis among adolescents, an analysis of countrywide data for 413,080 12- to 14-year-olds showed.
Prescribing new antivirals for influenza
February 21st 2019Imagine the joy of experiencing a late fall, winter, and spring season of never having to press the e-prescribing submit button in the electronic health record for an antiviral medication to treat an infant, child, or adolescent who is very ill after contracting influenza.
How did prescription guidelines for pneumonia change behaviors? (VIDEO)
February 20th 2019For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses a research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics that examined how well children's and non-children's hospitals adopted the 2011 guidelines for prescriptions written for community-acquired pneumonia treatment.
A pediatric epidemic: Deformational plagiocephaly/brachycephaly and congenital muscular torticollis
February 1st 2019Pediatric healthcare providers are on the front lines to provide early identification and treatment of plagiocephaly/brachycephaly and torticollis for those infants spending more time supine/reclined and less time prone. Here’s why early intervention is so important.
Not sleeping through the night by age 12 months? Not to worry!
February 1st 2019Many 6- and 12-month-old infants do not yet sleep through the night, but Canadian researchers found no significant associations between this situation and infants’ mental and psychomotor development or their mothers’ mood.
Reticulated rash on boy’s lower extremities
February 1st 2019A healthy 11-year-old boy is brought to the office for evaluation of asymptomatic reticulated rash that started on his ankles 3 weeks ago and since has spread to his shins and the tops of both feet. He is on no medications and has had no history of trauma or recent illness. What's the diagnosis?
Poverty raises risk of bacterial infection in febrile infants
February 1st 2019Febrile infants from disadvantaged neighborhoods with high rates of childhood poverty are much more likely than their peers from more affluent neighborhoods to have a bacterial source for their fever, according to a retrospective study of infants aged 90 days or younger with a temperature of 100°F or greater who visited an emergency department (ED) of an urban children’s hospital.
Child with a history of multiple fractures
The patient, an 8-year-old male who recently immigrated to the United States from El Salvador, initially presented to the emergency department (ED) for a cough. The next day, he went to the general pediatrics clinic for follow-up and was noted to have a significant history of recurrent fractures.