News

Welcome

Welcome to the Fall 2005 edition of "Dateline" from the editors of Contemporary Pediatrics! The editorial staff will be reporting live from the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. We will bring you important news about your specialty and your practice from the floor. Watch your electronic in-box for digests of the meeting's most important and pertinent clinical and investigational news-gathered from CME sessions, research forums, press briefings, and the exhibit hall.

The inability to calculate therapeutic dosages for children accounts for the majority of pediatric drug errors, according to Ronda G. Hughes, PhD, MHS, RN, and Elizabeth A. Edgerton, MD, MPH, of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But there are practical ways for nurses-who often have primary responsibility for ensuring patient safety in the hospital and are usually the providers who administer the medications-to reduce the likelihood of a mistake.

Lately, I've spent a lot of time talking about the alleged link between thimerosal in pediatric vaccines and autism. Most of you have been asked by parents whether immunizations pose a risk of autism as well, and some parents are so frightened by rumors, press reports, and information on the World Wide Web that they forgo immunizations for their children altogether.

Perfect child, stomach pain

I recently saw a 9-year-old girl who had a five-month complaint of functional abdominal pain. Her parents were skeptical of the diagnosis. They told me their daughter was a model student, had lots of friends, and was engaged in a (reasonable) number of extracurricular activities. The girl was not uncomfortable during the visit and seemed eager to please her parents.

It was established on cheap swampland that was once thought uninhabitable, but it became the capital of "the last best hope of man." Its wide avenues, streets, monuments, and buildings play witness to the steady march of time and history.

When Pierre L'Enfant first viewed the land along the banks of the Potomac in 1791, he must have been a little disappointed. He faced a daunting design task. Much of the land was uninhabitable swampland ceded from Maryland and Virginia. (Later, the land originating in Virginia was given back to that commonwealth.) There are several hills (other than Capitol Hill), but you'll never get any higher than 420 feet above sea level no matter where you go in the District of Columbia.

Eye on Washington

Majority Leader Frist jumps ship on stem-cell research, and a decision on OTC status for Plan B is imminent—maybe

Your patient is a 14-year-old boy who complains of bilateral foot pain of several weeks' duration. Sometimes, he tells you, the pain is so bad that he cannot bear weight and has to crawl from place to place. As you talk with him, you note that all 10 fingernails are abnormally thick and raised.

Your patient is a 10-year-old Latino girl brought to the clinic by her very concerned mother. The complaint is leg and joint pain-severe enough to make walking difficult. The visit comes after your colleague at the clinic saw the girl about a month ago for an unusual rash described in the record as a brownish, linear, papular eruption, possibly urticaria pigmentosa.