Jon Matthew Farber, MD

Dr Farber is a pediatrician in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Articles by Jon Matthew Farber, MD

Many times, testing seems to be the easiest way to answer a clinical question, but judicious use of tests is the best approach. Here are some guidelines I have followed over the years.

By the time most of us become parents, we have been pediatricians for a while and do not find parenting all that scary. To get the right dose of empathy, think back to when we first started handling babies-in medical school. Here are some things I tell new parents.

In my 40-plus years of pediatrics, I have sometimes treated patients based on the best of intentions, but with perhaps the worst of evidence. Here are some “best practices” I have used, and discarded, over time.

There is a trend in internal medicine to get away from doing complete physical examinations on each visit, with a minimalistic approach to a healthy patient. I am not prepared to go that far just yet, but I have modified my examination in many ways over the years. Here are some gems I have unearthed.

Is it fact or fiction? In this first article of a new series, a pediatrician with years of practice experience offers his pediatric words of wisdom, or "mythbusters" as the case might be, about common childhood maladies.