Faculty Bibliography

By Atul Gawande. 269 pp. New York, Metropolitan Books, 2002. $24. ISBN 0-8050-6319-6.

Klass describes how parents can decide whether or not to call a doctor regarding their children's illnesses. Parents should use common sense, follow their instincts, and avoid panicking.

So when I want a memory of Papa as a grandfather, I look at our trip to London, three years ago. My older two children, then 15 and 9, had spring vacation at the same time, but not their father or their younger brother. We came up with the idea of a low-budget trip to London for 10 days, me, my father, and the two kids. We stayed at a student hotel in Bloomsbury, one room for Papa and Orlando, one for [Josephine] and me. Bathroom down the hall. Papa was in good shape; he walked with a cane, but he walked fast. All the way up into the dome at St. Paul's. Always worried about being late, he hustled us through the streets of London to meet up with the start of a walking tour he was afraid we might miss. He straddled the meridian at Greenwich, gesturing with his cane. Papa was a cultural anthropologist, and I was born on a field trip to Trinidad. When I was 5, we went to India for that year, my parents and my younger brother and I. I don't remember Trinidad, or Papa as he was in Trinidad in 1958, but I certainly remember him in India in 1963 and 1964. That is the memory I call up for the relatively young Papa, certainly as young as I recall him, the intense and ambitious professor near the start of his professional career, the father of young children, the academic adventurer off in a small Indian village. It's Papa teaching me how to eat politely with my right hand only, even though he was left-handed himself and struggled much more than I did with this Indian imperative. Papa with his dark-rimmed glasses, leaning forward explaining the importance of the goddess Mother Durga and all her many arms, and the bloodthirstiness of Kali, with her necklace of human heads, and taking us in to see the statues, painted and surrounded by incense, at festival time. Papa sitting with me in the courtyard and going through the flashcards he happened to have brought along -- there are some recurring themes -- as I learned, triumphantly, to read

Klass, a pediatrician, has encountered justifiably angry parents. However, Klass claims the professional right both to make mistakes and to remind parents that pediatrics isn't a science--it's an art. Klass notes that she handles logical issues more easily. She tries to return evening and weekend messages pretty promptly. Klass suggests that the key to parent-pediatrician relations is openness and honesty

Klass discusses the need for parents to emphasize their role as a parent over their role as a playmate and friend to their children. She examines various behaviors that parents should avoid, such as living in fear of their child's anger, making child activities their passion, and organizing their lives around their children's needs and wants

Klass discusses some of the parenting techniques she has observed in her career as a pediatrician. Parents know their children well, and doctors should learn from their techniques and explanations and should also be sure to listen to an upset parent