Faculty Bibliography

In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was. First the casual inquiry, one parent to another: Did you take any money out of my wallet? Then the little rat's nest of bills accidentally discovered in the seven-year-old's room. The worrying, the questioning, the self-doubt: How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don't want to know about our child's character? About ourselves? 'Kids are trying to find out what happens if you get caught. And if nobody catches them and says, 'That's wrong, you have to give that back or pay for it,' they don't get a sense of being properly supervised,' [Barbara Howard] said. Dr. Martin T. Stein, another expert at the University of California San Diego/Rady Children's Hospital, used a favourite pediatrician's phrase to talk about those five-to-eight-year-olds who steal: 'It's really a teachable moment.'

First the casual inquiry, one parent to another: If a child in middle school is stealing money, you have to worry, already, about drugs and alcohol and the other influences in that child's life. [...] what about true antisocial behavior? A young child's stealing is in no way the equivalent of setting fires or torturing animals or any of the other frightening prospects that flash across some parents' minds in that first did-I-just-see-you-take-something-from-the-store moment

'The advice we're supposed to give in pediatric clinic, it boils down to 'Eat less, exercise more,'' said Dr. Julie C. Lumeng, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in childhood obesity. 'This is such blasphemy, but when I deliver this advice to families, my heart's not in it, because I just feel like so often the families are just glazing over, and when that advice is delivered to me, I glaze over, too.' 'I know it all, I do research in this,' she went on. 'But in the moment I'm exhausted, it's been a long day at work, everyone's sort of irritable. You can know what you need to do, but when the moment comes ...' In the end, Dr. Lumeng is left with the same advice that made her glaze over: 'I've had patients who say to me, 'Wow, doctor, you've really lost weight -- how did you do it?' And I have to say, 'Well, I exercise more and I eat less!''

What price the not-skinny doctor? 'The advice we're supposed to give in pediatric clinic, it boils down to 'Eat less, exercise more,' ' said Dr. Julie C. Lumeng, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in childhood obesity. [...] Dr.\n

Here are three things I now know I should have done: I didn't tell the mother that bullying can be prevented, and that it's up to the school. I didn't call the principal or suggest that the mother do so. And I didn't give even a moment's thought to the bullies, and what their lifetime prognosis might be. Dr. Robert D. Sege, chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and a lead author of the new policy statement, says the [Dan Olweus] approach focuses attention on the largest group of children, the bystanders. 'Olweus's genius,' he said, 'is that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect.' The other lead author, Dr. Joseph L. Wright, senior vice president at Children's National Medical Center in Washington and the chairman of the pediatrics academy's committee on violence prevention, notes that a quarter of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as bullies or as victims. Protecting children from intentional injury is a central task of pediatricians, he said, and 'bullying prevention is a subset of that activity.'

The other lead author, Dr. Joseph Wright, senior vice president at Children's National Medical Center in Washington and the chairman of the pediatrics academy's committee on violence prevention, notes that a quarter of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as bullies or as victims

Knowledge and research that have accumulated over decades about the effects of physical abuse and sexual abuse are being codified into a curriculum; fellowship training in the field will have to meet certain standards; an expert, testifying in court, can expect to be questioned about being board-certified

Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood (Owl Books, 1999), argues that the way we talk to boys and young men about sex often stereotypes them and hurts their feelings. Over time, Dr. Sanders incorporated this conversation into his regular exam room routine, starting with boys around age 12: We'll talk about respect, about whether they feel they are respected in their own families, the respect they have for their mothers, the respect they see other men paying to their own mothers or sisters -- do you think that applies to other girls that you meet?

'The literature really strongly suggests the average early to mid-adolescent needs 9 to 9.25 hours a night,' said Dr. Judith Owens, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who directs the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Hasbro Children's Hospital. Mary Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown and the director of chronobiology research at E. P. Bradley Hospital, says that in the sleep lab, researchers can assess a child's sleep drive by looking at EEG recordings of the brain, and monitor circadian rhythm by testing saliva

When I was doing my residency in pediatrics (at the same children's hospital where Willow goes for her experimental therapy, which may strengthen her bones but may also have bad side effects years down the line), I was awed by the parents of children with chronic diseases like OI. 'How could I admit to anyone -- much less myself -- that you were not only the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me . . . but also the most exhausting, the most overwhelming?' Yes, the money she hopes to win could buy her daughter the best wheelchairs, the best summer camps, but for the sake of wringing that money out of the system, she destroys her closest friend, alienates her older daughter, horrifies her husband and damages the child she's trying to help