News

Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) refers to a spectrum of abnormalities that range in severity from mild instability to frank dislocation. The vast majority of clinical and anatomic hip abnormalities identified in early infancy resolve spontaneously. Left untreated, however, a hip that is persistently unstable and anatomically abnormal can lead to functional limitations, pain, and premature degenerative changes.

Readers of Contemporary Pediatrics will be pleased to know that according to Merritt-Hawkins, one of the nation’s leading physician search firms, the average starting salary offered to recruit pediatricians rose from $195,000 in 2015 to $224,000 in 2016, a 15% increase. You may be curious how your current compensation as well as your compensation model compares with that of your colleagues. More importantly, there may be ways for you to earn more-or avoid a painful pay cut if your patient visits are dwindling.

You are asked to evaluate a healthy 9-year-old girl with an itchy rash on her face, neck, and hands for a week. She had a similar eruption 1 month ago that resolved over several days. Although she has a history of poison ivy, her parents knew of no exposure. There was no history of new topical skin products. However, she had begun to eat more seasonal fruits recently, including strawberries, grapes, and mangos.

Traditionally, first positions for graduating registered nurses (RNs) are hospital based, where many have expertise and experience in emergency management. However, when RNs attend graduate school to become primary care nurse practitioners, planning for managing emergencies in an outpatient medical office may or may not have been a part of graduate education.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses a report published in the Health Services Research that examined how Washington state reduced the number of antipsychotic prescriptions written for children in the Medicaid system.

A recent study found that there is a significant familial link in otitis media requiring tympanostomy tubes in both close and distant relatives, with shared environments possibly playing a role, given the fivefold increased risk seen in siblings.

Ear infections remain a top reason for parents to bring their children to the pediatrician-and the top reason for antibiotic prescriptions among pediatric patients. Diagnosis and treatment methods vary, but a new study reveals that a 10-day course of treatment with antibiotics in cases of acute otitis media (AOM) may be the gold standard.

Most children are not being adequately vaccinated against influenza, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which also just published a new report demonstrating the efficacy of the vaccine in reducing influenza-related deaths in children.

Despite controversy surrounding the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, more adolescents and young adults are getting vaccinated. However, overall vaccination rates of HPV compared with other teenaged-years vaccines are still low, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

After CVS, the large retail pharmacy chain, stopped selling cigarettes in its stores, many consumers who used to buy their smokes at CVS simply bought fewer cigarettes and presumably smoked less.

Focusing on emergencies became our platform to address the far more important goals of situational awareness, team integration, and effective communication. As we build increasingly matrixed systems of care that surround our littlest of patients, having addressed these goals inspires us with confidence that we can do so with the child’s safety at top of mind.

A new study found that the well-documented racial/ethnic disparities in asthma diagnosis and morbidity are diminished after accounting for material hardship.

Fewer than half of commercially insured children who have been hospitalized for asthma receive an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS), even though many of them make outpatient visits within 30 days of hospital discharge.

A healthy newborn girl returns for a follow-up visit at age 7 days, and she is exhibiting multiple disseminated red macules and papules of varying sizes. While in the nursery, several red blanching macules had been noted on her trunk at age 2 days.

Studies highlight a need for pediatrician offices to be ready to handle emergencies, available data also demonstrate that many practices, including those that have already needed to treat a critically ill child, are not adequately prepared because they lack the relevant protocols, training, and tools.

A reader writes in to discuss the management conditions specifically related to stress.

Securing a child’s airway in an emergency setting can be challenging, and success here is dictated by a mosaic of factors such as clinician experience, appropriate instrumentation, and, importantly, the many anatomical and physiological considerations that differ significantly from the adult population.

Functional constipation in children is no news to pediatricians. What may be news is that recommendations on how to diagnose and treat this common malady keep evolving as more evidence becomes available.

Like typical children, children with intellectual disabilities or autism will toilet train at different rates and with different strategies. For some families, this can be a frustrating and depressing time. Discussing the use of positive rewards and avoiding punishment will help these parents slowly make progress. Here is a detailed program to help patients achieve continence.

This article describes how a mobile application, a “web widget,” and an office triage support tool can expedite and improve your existing office triage capabilities.

A male infant is born and delivery is remarkable for yellow amniotic fluid and a jaundiced infant. Following delivery he is given intensive phototherapy and then develops erythema, which later becomes ecchymosis. What's the diagnosis?

Researchers aren’t certain why adolescent depression rates are on the rise, but they do know that treatment rates are not growing along with increased prevalence, according to a new report.

Action on substance misuse is too important to leave to politicians.

Children in the foster care system are exposed early in life to adverse experiences by living within dysfunctional families and specific facts have not changed. What has changed is the recognition of the need for the healthcare system to change its care for these vulnerable children to prevent the adverse effects that traumatic stress imposes on their physical and emotional development and well-being.

Bacteremia is now a rare event in previously healthy children aged 3 to 36 months because of the introduction of routine immunization with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV).

Among concerns with administering these multiple and frequent immunizations in young children are the potential pain and adverse effects associated with injections. Along with inducing pain in some children, the early negative experience of needle-related procedures can interfere with adherence to immunization schedules and create long-lasting effects of anxiety and stress around needle-related procedures that remain into adulthood.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses a study published in the journal Pediatric Emergency Care that examined whether practices were prepared for emergencies requiring airway management.

A recent study found that taking a watchful waiting approach when managing acute otitis media in qualifying children proves to be the more cost-effective strategy to follow.