Visiting the Hospital with a Child

The hospital can be a very scary place for a child. One way to reduce the stress for your child and for you is to be prepared and to prepare your child for what is coming. Research actually shows that children heal and recuperate better from illnesses and injuries when they are prepared. When they can predict what will happen during their treatment, it builds a sense of trust and eases their stress.

Remember that you are an important part of the team. Working with the health care staff helps to make the process go more smoothly. This includes remaining calm and projecting a positive attitude to comfort your child. If the health care professional isn’t explaining things enough to your child, ask for clarification and explain to your child what he can expect. Obviously, if the situation is life threatening, this is irrelevant – but in a more contained situation it can be very helpful.

Warning - Texting May Be Dangerous for Your Health

Ergonomics researchers are taking a look at college students to evaluate what texting could mean for their health. Most adults between the ages of 18-21 prefer texting on their phone to e-mail or phone calls. Judith Gold, an assistant professor of Epidemiology at the College of Health Professions and Social Work, thinks that they may be jeopardizing their health.

At the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, she presented her preliminary findings showing that college students who texted more had more pain in their neck and shoulders than did those who texted less. This is quite a new area of research, since texting is a new phenomenon. However, she says that, "Given the similarities in body position, findings from research on overuse injuries from computers could be applicable here.”

Office workers who experience on-the-job injuries often show carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis and tendonitis. These are issues that emergency room physicians like Josyann Abisaab will then see, or that a family physician will need to examine.

Handle with Care: Emergency Room Care

There is a growing trend today to go to the emergency room even when there is no indication of a real emergency. In many cases people are refraining from scheduling a visit with their doctor in favor of an expensive and uncomfortable emergency room visit.

Non-emergency patients may find that they have to wait upwards of 2 hours or more to be seen by a physician in the emergency room. This is due to the fact that the ER practices triage, a system which assures that the most urgent cases, the real emergencies, get the immediate care that they need without having to wait on line. In many cases in real emergencies having to wait for care could mean the difference between life and death.

But what about the in-between cases in which one is not sure whether they are experiencing a “real” emergency or it is something better seen by your doctor in his office after scheduling an appointment.

The first rule is that if you believe you are experiencing a medical emergency, then you should not hesitate to go to the ER. Short of that, it might be prudent to first call your regular doctor, describe your symptoms, and have your doctor help you decide what you should do. It is possible that your doctor will tell you to come to his office to check you, and squeeze you in between his regularly scheduled patients to be sure you either do or do not need to go to the ER.
Most primary care doctors are available 24 hours a day, or else are part of a practice with a group of doctors in which there is always someone on call.

It is a good idea to become familiar with the kind of symptoms requiring an ER visit. The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) published a booklet describing the signs and symptoms of illnesses and injuries which need immediate medical attention in an emergency room. To receive a free copy you can call the ACEP at 800-446-9776.

Helping to Create a Smooth Emergency Room Visit

Certainly, when you go the emergency room, there are many things that you can’t control. You can’t control how long you’ll have to be there, how many people need more urgent care than you do, or what the doctors will find. There are, however, certain things that you can control and the more that you take advantage of these items, the more smooth your process may be.

1. Id and insurance: If you have insurance, make sure to bring it with you to the emergency room. Bring the identification materials for the patient as well. If you bring your child for care, for instance, it’s not enough to bring your insurance materials. Bring the child’s materials.

2. Don’t bring a crowd: There are enough people in the emergency room – they don’t need extra people around. If you bring your child for care, don’t bring along the grandparents, both parents and siblings. One caregiver, or two at the most, is enough company for the patient.

3. Health record: If the patient has pre-existing conditions or medicines, make sure to bring materials on these issues. If they take medications, for instance, make sure you’ve got the name of each medicine and the dose. The emergency room doctors aren’t clairvoyant. They can only work with the materials that they have in front of them, and the more that you provide them with information, the better off they will be in creating good care.

4. Provide information: Along these lines, make sure to be upfront with the doctors. If you’ve brought your elderly father for care and he had two alcoholic drinks earlier in the evening, don’t hide this fact. If you noticed a bull’s eye on your son’s skin, but you assume it’s nothing, don’t blow it off! This small detail might be the difference between diagnosing Lyme’s Disease and missing it entirely.

Emergency Care Tips

As Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is certainly true when it comes to emergency room care. The more that you plan for an emergency, as ironic as that sounds, the more smooth the situation will be when there is really a crisis. For this reason, here are a number of tips for emergency room trip preparation.

Before anyone in the house needs to go to the emergency room, here are the things that should be done:

1. Keep all emergency numbers by the phone. These should include the police, the fire department, the poison control center, the name and number for your primary care doctor, and your insurance carrier. In time of a crisis, people often forget things and having them right by the phone will be very helpful. In addition, if you have a babysitter in the house or someone else, they’ll know how to get in touch with the help they need.

2. Know what your insurance policy covers. Before anyone needs emergency care, find out what to do in case of an emergency. Do you have to call your primary care physician first and get permission to go to the emergency room? Are certain emergencies covered by your insurance, while others aren’t? Do your homework now so that you don’t pay out of pocket later.

3. Have a list of all medications that you take and allergies that you have. This list should be in an easily accessible place, either with your health insurance card or on your Blackberry in an obvious place. Someone else should know where you keep this information, in case you can’t tell anyone about it when you need emergency care.

These preventative steps can make a big difference when an emergency strikes.