Category Archives: On the Job

You Don’t Have to Snore to Have Serious Sleep Apnea! Think Occult Laryngomalacia (OLM)

By Linda | May 14, 2013

Sleep apnea–partial or total obstruction of breathing during sleep–is an increasing, and largely unrecognized, health problem. Sleep apnea is not just annoying to bed partners, but has enormous negative effects on our hearts, causing early heart disease, heart attacks and heart failure. Sleep apnea is associated with mood disorders, depression and cognitive dysfunction. Sleep apnea [...]

Posted in On the Job | Tagged laryngomalcia, occult laryngomalacia, sleep apnea, sleep disordered breathing | Leave a comment

Advocacy in Disguise: A Parent’s View on Exploitation of the Vulnerable

By Linda | April 15, 2013

March was Trisomy Advocacy Month. How could I have missed that one? I hate to admit that I have a favorite trisomy, but it is true. Trisomy 21 a/k/a Down syndrome.
People with Down syndrome are increasingly integrated into the mainstream of life. And this is because parents and others have been incredibly successful in advocating [...]

Also posted in Adventures in Advocacy, Telling Stories | Tagged advocacy, Cancer research, Down Syndrome, Roswell Park Cancer Institute | 7 Comments

Excessive Exercise Can Be UnHealthy for Our Kids!

By Linda | March 5, 2013

What gives? There is a raging obesity epidemic out there. Too little exercise=computer potato. But too much exercise? What harm? As it turns out, more than meets the eye: sleep disordered breathing and sleep apnea, acid reflux disease, eating problems, mood disorders and headaches.
How is this possible? Isn’t exercise good for our kids? Of course. [...]

Also posted in Adventures in Advocacy | 2 Comments

From Olympic Hopeful to Computer Potato–Exercise Extremes Can Be Harmful to Kid’s Health

By Linda | February 26, 2013

Kids today suffer from the extremes of a society that wants too much, has too little and never settles for just right. Self-regulation, ideally learned in the first 4-5 years of life, and possibly even earlier, has become an important but forgotten goal of child rearing.
Both too little exercise and too much exercise can have [...]

Also posted in Accidental Crusader | 1 Comment

Childhood Obesity: Education, Exercise and Elimination of School Snacks

By Linda | February 20, 2013

More than one-third of the children I see in my practice are obese. Granted, my practice is skewed because we deal with a number of problems in which obesity takes a major role, e.g. obstructive sleep apnea and extra-esophageal reflux disease (reflux from the stomach that comes up into the airways). At least twice a [...]

Also posted in Adventures in Advocacy | Tagged children, exercise, food, Obesity, school lunches | 6 Comments

American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation: Clinical Practice Guideline: Tympanostomy (Ear) Tubes in Children

By Linda | January 8, 2013

PUBLIC OPINION REQUESTED. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TO GET INVOLVED!

Has your child had ear infections? Has she or he ever had ear tubes? Have you ever known of someone else’s child who has? Chances are that you can answer at least one of these questions with a resounding “Yes!”
Okay, with your expertise now established, [...]

Also posted in Adventures in Advocacy | Tagged ear infections, Ear tubes | Leave a comment

Flexing the Mommy Muscles–How Many Roles Do Women Need to Play at One Time to Be Taken Seriously?

By Linda | September 14, 2012

Yesterday, in the Huff Po, Joanne Bamberger bemoans “the political cult of Mom” which she found not unexpected in Tampa but found pretty surprising in Charlotte. How open minded of her. She reports that Ann Romney, who never worked a day in her life raising 5 children while battling multiple sclerosis and supporting her husband’s [...]

Also posted in Women at Work | Tagged Mommy Cult, Mommy Muscles | 4 Comments

Whose Fault Is It Anway? When Patients and Doctors Don’t Seem to Comminicate.

By Linda | August 21, 2012

In my office, every new patient encounter starts the same way. I walk in and say, “Hello. Let me put down my computer (which I take from room to room), wash my hands” (which I purposely point out that I do before I touch anyone or anything else), and then I turn to the family [...]

Also posted in Anger Management | Tagged Doctor patient communication | 4 Comments

The Purpose of Education: Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmatic……and Food?

By Linda | July 26, 2012

The purpose of education in the US has reflected our nation’s ever-changing needs. At the beginning of the 19th century, George Washington’s time, the major goal was to create good citizens. In the early 20th century, legal theorist, John Dewey, saw schools as a place to learn how to live and to use skills and [...]

Also posted in Worthy Causes | Tagged education, food | 3 Comments

Color Codes in Healthcare: Keep Us Safe or Keep Us Laughing?

By Linda | July 19, 2012

July, 2012: “Code red, Tanner 7, Code red, Tanner 7,” an electronic voice calmly announces on the overhead. All the elevators return to the ground floor. All automatic doors immediately close. Everything stops. No surgery can begin. No one can be transferred from the operating room to the recovery room. Everyone freezes.
“Hmmm, what does [...]

Also posted in Telling Stories | Tagged Hospital color codes, safety | Leave a comment