Faculty Bibliography

The diagnostic term for this common and perplexing condition is 'functional abdominal pain': recurrent stomachaches, as the American Academy of Pediatrics put it in 2005, with no 'anatomic, metabolic, infectious, inflammatory or neoplastic disorder' to explain them. Miranda A. L. van Tilburg, a psychologist who is assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, was the lead author of a study published a year ago in Pediatrics, which showed good effects from a treatment called guided imagery

Klass reviews PULSE: VOICES FROM THE HEART OF MEDICINE--THE FIRST YEAR edited by Paul Gross and Diane Guernsey

Doctors can be too quick to dismiss complaints about belly troubles. The stomachache people look with some envy at the headache people. 'For some reason people respect headaches,' said Carlo Di Lorenzo, a professor of clinical pediatrics at Ohio State. 'I've never seen a parent or a pediatrician tell a child complaining of a headache, 'You don't have a headache -- it's not real.' Bellyache is just as real as headache.' 'We think in terms of a biological psychological social model,' for pain said Joel R. Rosh, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Goryeb Children's Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey, and an associate professor of pediatrics at New Jersey Medical School, 'When a child says, 'My belly hurts,' what drives me crazy is people say, 'No it doesn't.' Why would people say that? You're feeling something! How much is biological, how much is psychological, how much is social?' Our patient said she didn't want to see any more doctors. She didn't want any more blood tests, and she didn't want tests she had heard about that involved tubes. Her mother didn't really want those tests either, since as she said, they never find anything wrong. Neither was enthusiastic about seeing a counselor, but they finally agreed. It's an appropriate strategy. 'It's very disempowering to have this alien living in your belly,' Dr. Rosh said. 'How about if I learn that my belly doesn't have to run my life?'

Dr. Johnston told me that a condition called post-traumatic arousal -- a component of post-traumatic stress disorder that leaves children on edge, jittery and likely to overreact -- was predictive of a repeat injury, not only in a child but also in siblings. Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has studied post-traumatic stress in families who have been in car accidents

What we're specifically talking about in kids with attention deficit is a problem compared to age- and gender-based peers in selective attention -- what do you glom onto and what do you ignore? [...] the disorder occurs along a broad spectrum, from mild to extreme

'There's a lot we still don't know,' said Bruce F. Pennington, a professor of psychology at the University of Denver and an expert on the genetics and neuropsychology of attention disorders. 'But we know enough to say it is a brain-based disorder, and we have some idea about which circuits are involved and which genes.' Dr. [Maximilian Muenke] brought up 'Der Struwwelpeter' ('Slovenly Peter'), the 1845 book by Heinrich Hoffmann, which contains the story of 'Zappel-Philipp,' or 'Fidgety Philip.' (One English translation was done by Mark Twain, that great chronicler of boys.) The circumstances of modern life can give rise to the false belief that a culture full of electronics and multitasking imperatives creates the disorder. 'People have this idea that we live in a world that gives people A.D.H.D.,' Dr. [David K. Urion] said. Of course one shouldn't drive and text at the same time, he continued, but for 'a harbor pilot bringing a huge four-masted sailing vessel into Boston Harbor, paying attention was a good idea then, too.'

There's nothing simple about speech, and there's nothing simple about speech delay -- starting with diagnosing it. 'The physician who understands delayed speech understands child development,' said Dr. James Coplan, a Rosemont, Pa., pediatrician who created the Early Language Milestone Scale to measure children's language from birth to the age of three. 'You'll see delayed receptive language, delayed use of visual skills like pointing, adaptive skills like using a spoon or using a crayon,' Coplan said.

Primary care pediatricians 'really do take care of families, but by golly, they can also go to war -- and do,' I was proudly told by Dr. Val G. Hemming, a retired military pediatrician who was formerly dean of the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. The history of military pediatrics goes back at least to World War II; as the G.I.'s came home, they brought war brides and young children. Fifty Years of Training and Deploying Uniformed Pediatricians, published in the journal Pediatrics in 1999, traces pediatric training in the military to a 90-day course begun at Walter Reed in 1946 to teach general medical officers to take care of those babies