Kids' Doctor Visits

January 14, 2009
Interview with Bruce Taubman, M.D., author of Your Child's Symptoms: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Pediatric Medicine

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Mike Carruthers:
When a child gets sick, parents are often torn between treating the child at home themselves or going to the doctor.

Bruce Taubman, M.D.:
It's important for parents to realize that a visit in which they're worried their child is sick and they come to the office and they're told there's nothing serious, is not a wasted visit. One of the major roles of a Pediatrician is to reassure the parents that their children are healthy.

Dr. Bruce Taubman, Pediatrician and author of the book Your Child's Symptoms: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Pediatric Medicine says when it comes to chronic childhood problems parents are pretty good at knowing what to look for.

If they have any serious problems, it's going to affect their growth, it's going to affect their developments - so that's one major clue. Their level of activity is another clue and parents' intuition - again parents have a sense that they don't look well, they don't seem well. They come in maybe nine times out of ten - they might be wrong and their children are fine, but that's OK because that one time out of ten is going to be helpful.

The most common reason for childhood doctor visits is earaches. Dr. Taubman says keeping your child's ears covered in the cold does not prevent earaches.

When my children were around 3 and 6 years of age, I remember being in the park with my mother during the winter and I could see that something was annoying her and bothering her a great deal. And finally after about a half hour she exploded and said, "I can't control it anymore - even though you are a pediatrician these children need hats and they need their ears covered, son." So it's a thing that parents, grandparents believe in strongly but it really has nothing to do with ear problems and ear infections.

Complete interview is not available.