Clinical Tip: Distraction + the power of suggestion = Successful throat cultures

Open your ear!

When trying to obtain a throat culture from an uncooperative child, I hold the culture swab in my dominant hand and a plain cotton-tipped applicator in my other hand. I rub the cotton-tipped applicator against the patient's ear lobe while saying a few times, "open your ear; open your ear." Once the patient realizes that no pain is being inflicted, I suddenly say, "open your mouth." Amazingly, eight out of 10 times the child complies with my request. As I obtain the culture, I keep repeating "open your mouth," just as I did with the ear. Sometimes I even hear a chuckle from the parent as I tell the child to open his ear.

N. Zvi Avigdor, MD

Forest Hills, N.Y.

Related Videos
Benjamin Maxwell, MD, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry, Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego, California | Image provided
FDA approves B-VEC to treat dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa patients 6 months and older | Image Credit: bankrx - Image Credit: bankrx - stock.adobe.com.
Pfizer's infant RSV vaccine receives FDA Advisory Committee's support | Image Credit: Dr_Microbe - Image Credit: Dr_Microbe
Thomas R. Young, MD | Image Credit: Author provided
J. Thomas Megerian, MD, PhD, FAAP | Author provided
© 2023 MJH Life Sciences

All rights reserved.