Stressed Out: Toxic Stress and Child Brain Development
Stressed Out: Toxic Stress and Child Brain Development 150 150 Dave Ghose

Stress, in small doses, can be good for children. When they argue with another child over a toy or attend a new school or daycare, the experience can teach them valuable coping skills. Even a more intense event, such as the death of a…

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Getting to the Point: Are Safety Needles Really Safe?
Getting to the Point: Are Safety Needles Really Safe? 150 150 Kelli Whitlock Burton

Sharp hypodermic needles are, as the name implies, sharp. Just ask the nearly 400,000 U.S. health care workers who are accidentally pricked each year. Most needle sticks aren’t serious, but the potential for exposure to bloodborne diseases has led many hospitals to discontinue the…

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Building the Modern-Day Vaccine
Building the Modern-Day Vaccine 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Vaccine development used to be straightforward. Now, the challenges are many and the successes are few. What will it take to overcome the obstacles presented by both immunology and society? For 160 years, vaccine after vaccine succeeded at safely and effectively preventing its targeted…

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InSight: Working Up the Nerve
InSight: Working Up the Nerve 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Using regional anesthesia to numb nerves reduces pain and speeds recovery in pediatric orthopedic surgery. Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia has been used in adult patients for more than a decade but is now being used more regularly in pediatric patients, especially for orthopedic procedures. Femoral…

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Body, Heal Thyself: Harnessing Our Innate Immunity
Body, Heal Thyself: Harnessing Our Innate Immunity 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

What the urinary tract’s front-line defenses can teach us about our innate ability to self-heal …. and thwart antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is on the rise, health care-acquired infections are becoming harder to treat and even simple infectious illnesses account for billions of dollars…

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Enteral Therapy on Trial
Enteral Therapy on Trial 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Micah Cohen sat down at the dining room table in his family’s Columbus, Ohio, home and took the first sip of a new therapy he hoped would relieve the symptoms of his Crohn’s disease. The thick, sweet chocolate shake, rich with nutrients, felt heavy…

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Delays and Difficulties: Fecal Microbiota Transplants as Therapy
Delays and Difficulties: Fecal Microbiota Transplants as Therapy 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Use of fecal microbiota transplantation to treat a wide range of disorders is in limbo while the FDA decides how to regulate the therapy. Between 1997 and 2007, Clostridium difficile bacterial infections among U.S. children more than doubled and its mortality rate among all U.S. cases…

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An Unwelcome Blast from the Past: Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding
An Unwelcome Blast from the Past: Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding 150 150 Kelli Whitlock Burton

Most pediatric specialists who began practicing medicine in the mid-1960s have probably never seen a case of vitamin K deficiency bleeding. Robert Sidonio, MD, had seen just one, and that was during his fellowship. And then, in February 2013, an infant came in to the…

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Thinking Outside the (Tool) Box: How Techniques From Alzheimer’s Research Illuminate the Pathophysiology of Preeclampsia
Thinking Outside the (Tool) Box: How Techniques From Alzheimer’s Research Illuminate the Pathophysiology of Preeclampsia 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Irina Buhimschi, MD, has a habit of getting lost. In July 2007, that poor sense of direction proved to be a fortunate flaw. Having wandered into the wrong presentation at the Protein Society’s national conference, she hovered in the back to get her bearings.…

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Adult Congenital Heart Disease: Let’s Finish What We Started
Adult Congenital Heart Disease: Let’s Finish What We Started 150 150 Curt Daniels, MD

Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect, diagnosed in nearly 1 percent of all births in the United States. Traditionally, life expectancy in many infants with severe CHD was limited to months. However, advances in medical and surgical care have led to remarkable…

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The End of “Under 12″
The End of “Under 12″ 150 150 Kelli Whitlock Burton

UNOS board eliminates age classification for child lung transplant candidates and alters rules for pediatric heart transplants. Many in the pediatric field were surprised last year when a federal judge ordered that a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl with cystic fibrosis be added to the national adult…

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Mock MRI Scanners to Reduce Anesthesia Use
Mock MRI Scanners to Reduce Anesthesia Use 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Initial research supports the use of MRI practice sessions and mock scanners to avoid sedation and alleviate patient and parent anxiety before an MRI. Studies exist for populations such as patients with ADHD and diabetes, but to date no studies appear to investigate the use of a…

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Using Zinc for Growth Delays in Babies Born Preterm
Using Zinc for Growth Delays in Babies Born Preterm 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Zinc supplementation in extremely low birth-weight (ELBW) infants with chronic lung disease improves weight gain and linear growth, according to a retrospective study performed at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The study is one of the first to look at the association between zinc supplementation and growth in…

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Do Your Patients Understand You? Strategies to Improve Patient-Provider Communication
Do Your Patients Understand You? Strategies to Improve Patient-Provider Communication 150 150 Tiasha Letostak, PhD

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Title V, defines health literacy as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions. However, over a third…

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The Dilemma of Undertriaged Trauma Cases
The Dilemma of Undertriaged Trauma Cases 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Nationally, at least one in three children ages 5 and under with major trauma receive their definitive care at a level III trauma center or non-trauma center, according to arecent study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Among children ages 6 to 17, the…

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Out of Drugs: Planning for the Unthinkable
Out of Drugs: Planning for the Unthinkable 150 150 Dave Ghose

Pediatric cancer specialists have faced an enormous challenge in recent years. With critical chemotherapy drugs often in short supply, they’ve been forced to improvise alternative treatments or purchase medicine from questionable secondary sources. These practices raise safety and ethical concerns. Emerging evidence indicates that…

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ADHD Medications Do Not Curb Adult Height
ADHD Medications Do Not Curb Adult Height 150 150 Tiasha Letostak, PhD

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of children being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has increased from 7.8 percent to 11 percent in the last decade. Specifically, approximately 2 million more U.S. children between the ages of 4…

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AAP Statement on School Start Times May Be Challenging to Implement
AAP Statement on School Start Times May Be Challenging to Implement 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

The American Academy of Pediatrics published a statement in August supporting delayed start times for middle and high schools to help combat chronic sleep deprivation. Research indicates adolescents naturally experience a shift in their circadian rhythm that makes sleep difficult prior to 11 PM. But since…

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Sinus Infection Test Could Curb Antibiotic Overuse
Sinus Infection Test Could Curb Antibiotic Overuse 150 150 Tiasha Letostak, PhD

Antibiotic misuse, overuse and resistance have significant consequences for patients and hospitals, but determining the primary cause of sinusitis remains a clinical challenge for physicians. Now, diagnostic technology co-invented by researchers at The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital will better equip physicians…

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Reframing Hope in Pediatric End-of-Life Care
Reframing Hope in Pediatric End-of-Life Care 150 150 Tiasha Letostak, PhD

As physicians, you want to do more good than harm. And it is often believed that telling the truth about poor end-of-life expectations will lead to hopelessness in patients and families, causing more harm than good. But study after study on prognostication has shown…

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