When you take your child to the doctor, keep in mind that:
1. When they tell you that the "patient information forms" are private, they're wrong. Privacy only holds until they (mandatory reporters of crime under most state laws), a social worker, or your insurance company decides they need to release the information. In other words, the only privacy you have ends once any interested party in this list wants the data.
2. They're getting a lot of their information on firearms from suspect sources like the Brady Campaign. Here's a better source. I plan on surprising my kids' pediatrician with little facts like the actual rate at which firearms are used to defend families--source being the U.S. Department of Justice.
3. If you've been a parent for a while, you've noticed that their advice about nutrition and other things seems to change quite regularly. For example; when my first was born, we were warned "no milk until age 1," and to use whole milk until age 2. Now we're told to start milk before age 1 (along with other foods previously proscribed, and use skim milk after age 1.
In other words, outside the truly "medical" portion of the training of pediatricians, I'm seeing more and more evidence that the advice we're hearing from them is at best an educated guess. At worst, it's a repetition of propaganda.
I hope and pray that they retain basic medical expertise in their core competency. However, when they miss the boat on a fair number of things, I have to start to question their wisdom on issues like vaccination as well. You cannot be sloppy with evidence in one area, and then expect me to believe you're going to be careful with evidence in other areas.
Speaking of which, see the latest study for/against the use of coffee?
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5 comments:
I'm ornery enough (internally, at least) and confident enough in the proven "folk wisdom" I've imbibed from my own parents and older friends that this sort of thing never bothered me personally. I've always figured that doctors are for figuring out hidden ailments, or for helping you when you know you're sick, but there's nothing magical in their training or their persons that helps them know more about child development, basic "maintenance," and the like, that I can't figure out from reading credible sources and listening to advice from trustworthy people myself. Even when I was a young parent, I felt this way.
I have to remind myself, though, that a lot of young parents either aren't equipped, or have been persuaded they aren't equipped, to make this kind of judgment themselves. For their sakes, warnings such as yours are helpful, and it's a good reminder to me to gently offer my own experienced thoughts when opportunity arises, lest younger parents be left feeling that the expert with the degree is the only place they can turn to figure out basic parenting information.
Don't mistake me, I am not an anti-medical type by any stretch. I just agree with you that there's been an unfortunate tendency to invest the medical profession with all kinds of knowledge and authority that they aren't specially qualified to carry. What young Christian parents need most is wise parents of their own to set the example, and lacking that, the advice and encouragement of their slightly or greatly older brothers and sisters in the faith in matters of what ought to be "common sense."
And in fairness to the docs, the information they are using might be flawed, but the other half of the problem is that there are so many people out there in charge of children, who really don't know the first thing and have nowhere good to turn. The doctor can't tell by looking at me the first time I walk in the door that I'm different from the woman who was raised on cheetos and coke and is on her fourth child by the third man.
The big objection I have to that thought is that if you're trying to help the woman with four different kids with three fathers (none of whom she's seeing now), why not provide accurate information?
Why the agenda from social services types? Methinks there's something bigger in play here.
Common sense goes a long way. The issue we've had with information at the Doctor's office is not what they give you, but the amount of information they want to collect from you and your children, most of it not germane to the condition that you are seeking care for.
We've refused to fill out any questions not related to the immediate care and returned the "incomplete" form to the nurse or attendant. Usually they've pressed us to complete the information, saying they "need" the information, to which we politely say, "No, you don't." Usually they're collecting data for some social engineering purpose, asking if there are firearms in the home and other lifestyle questions more personally invasive. It's not that we (or our kids) have or do anything that can't be public, but there's no need for the Nanny State to get this, or set an expectation with the public that we're obligated to provide this just because they ask.
Also, never let your children be examined or interviewed without you being present.
Oh, I absolutely agree about the quality and accuracy of the information. My point was that sometimes I tend to get a bit prickly about the thought that a doctor has to tell me anything about how to feed a kid or help him along with basic developmental stuff or exercise common sense in parenting -- like it takes an M.D. to know that a kid should be kept away from chemicals and the like, for example. That's when I need to remember that not everyone was brought up by, and surrounded by, sensible people from whom such cues are just picked up more or less naturally, and it's not that he's assuming I'm an idiot, it's that he deals with genuinely clueless people at times and can't assume anything.
I don't get prickly when a doctor tries to share accurate information, but I do get prickly when the doctor is sharing ideas that are politically motivated, outright false, or show a rapidly changing recommendation.....
....not exactly what I'd give as a recommendation for someone who is already clueless, either.....sometimes they actually "clue in" to the fact that politics or change is creeping in, and say "why bother finding out and applying the truth?"
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