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Several times a year, Contemporary Pediatrics asks its readers for help. The publication's research staff sends a survey to a sample of several hundred pediatricians, asking for their reaction to articles that we've published in a particular issue and for suggestions about topics for upcoming issues. We continue to be gratified by readers' enthusiasm for our publication, and we want to do all we can to maintain that enthusiasm.

Pediatricians and schools can be powerful partners in promoting children's health and academic success. Read on to become familiar with school health services and ways to work with school-based personnel to benefit your patients.

Determining the cause of recurrent pneumonia requires that you run through an extensive differential, then order the diagnostic tests that narrow the field.

Puzzler of the month

New products for pediatricians

Letters from readers

A child's health problem--temporary or chronic--puts an incredible strain on physician-parents. Here's how a few have learned to cope.

The earlier that social-emotional problems are recognized, the better the outcome is likely to be. Several recent screening tools for children from birth to 3 years can facilitate this process using parent-completed questionnaires.

Clinicians' crossword puzzle

Adoptions of foreign-born children by families in the United States, which more than tripled over the past 25 years, may raise medical, developmental, psychosocial, and legal concerns. Pediatricians who understand those concerns can better serve international adoptees and their new-found families.

With the election of Senator Bill Frist, MD (R-Tenn.), as leader of the Senate, physicians can expect health-related issues to receive intense and sympathetic attention in Congress.

Q I have a patient, a 9-year-old boy, whose family recently moved to a new neighborhood. Every morning since the boy started attending his new school, he has complained of nausea and had at least one episode of emesis, either before leaving for school or on the way there.

Q It seems that my patients are becoming larger, stronger, and more belligerent. Recently, a number of patients 9 to 16 years of age became uncooperative and actually combative when we performed procedures such as fingersticks for hemoglobin tests or administered vaccines.

In January, implementation of the federal government's plan to vaccinate 500,000 civilian health-care workers and emergency response teams against smallpox was begun.

Pediatric Puzzler: Emesis

With a combination vaccine that protects against five diseases now approved for use in the US--and other such vaccines on the horizon--pediatricians need answers to new questions: How should these vaccines be used for infants at various stages of immunization? Is it safe to give extra doses?

Finding an acceptable alternative to breast milk has proved to be a complicated quest that continues today.

A pediatrician argues that the prevalence and consequences of iron deficiency in the second year of life warrant a new practice: daily, prophylactic iron supplementation for 1- to 2-year-olds.

Letters from readers

Does supplementing infant formula with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids have an effect on visual acuity, growth, and cognitive development?