Holiday Hours    

Our office will be open for regular hours on Friday December 23rd and Friday 30th.

On Monday December 26th and again on Monday January 1st, the office will be closed. 

Respiratory Season Has Arrived    

Last week, the Dutchess County Health Department issued a public health advisory due to a notable uptick in reports of both bacterial pneumonia and pertussis in school-age children.  Several have been hospitalized.

While no child from our practice has been admitted, we certainly have been seeing more respiratory illness.  Last week, we saw four toddlers very suspect for whooping cough (click here to learn what the cough sounds like). 

Not surprisingly, we have also seen an increase in low vitamin D levels.  One infant came back last week with a level of zero.  In a paper published earlier this year, doctors that studied some 900 children from New Zealand found that those with the lowest vitamin D levels had the highest rate of both wheezing and respiratory infections. 

In 2007, the late Steve Jobs changed the world by introducing the iphone. The following year, the App store premiered, and last year, the iPad made its debut. Now when we enter a waiting room, odds are that neither parent nor school-age child will be thumbing through a glossy magazine - no, they're sending a text message, engrossed in an arcade game, or checking tomorrow's weather.

Among the 140,000 apps currently available, we wanted to mention one: KidsDoc Symptom Checker. It's based on the well-respected telephone protocols of Barton Schmitt, widely used by pediatric call centers. Although it's only $1.99, we're not sure most parents would find it very useful. It certainly promotes the mindset to, when in doubt, call the doctor - not surprisingly since it is sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Product Review:  Pulse Ox           

One of the marvels of the modern medical office has been the pulse oximeter. Appearing on the scene only about 20 years ago, pulse oximeters have dramatically improved the care children receive by helping us determine when a child is sick enough to need oxygen. This can be especially important in young children with wheezing. [They can also pick up congenital heart disease in a healthy-appearing newborn.]

If you have a toddler or school-age child prone to recurrent, significant wheezing, there is good news. No longer do you have to rely on peak flow measurements (which are effort-dependent) or eye-balling your child for dusky lips. The cost of pulse oximeters has fallen from many hundreds of dollars to the affordable range. We have tested a couple models in the office, and while they cannot be used on infants or younger toddlers, the readings correlate well with our "gold-standard" office model.

You can obtain one at store such as CVS for about $129.  At our apothecary, you can grab one for $30.