I’ve always wondered what kind of irresponsible, misguided parent brings children to Las Vegas. Now I have the answer, right in the mirror. Don’t judge: My sister lives there, so if the kids are ever going to see their cousins, they have to share the road with trucks that say, “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (We told the 9-year-old that these were advertisements for clothing, which the women pictured seemed to need.)
Digital Vision Digital Vision
Digital VisionOrnithologically speaking, wonder what kind of feathers they're wearing?
It’s true that Las Vegas has become more family friendly...for the Kardashians. We did, however, manage to make the trip educational. In psychology, the kids found that after 10:00 p.m., everyone’s tempers are shorter than a 9-year-old boy lost in a crowd. In chemistry, they discovered that no substance yet synthesized can mask the smell of cigarette smoke. And in meteorology, they learned never to step in a puddle on The Strip; whatever it is, it’s not rain.
Hope falls
Is there anything we wouldn’t do to prevent someone from dying of cancer? We will ride bikes 150 miles, run marathons, and wear endless seas of pink, even though honestly it’s not everyone’s color (you know who you are). So if there were, say, a safe and effective means of preventing up to 4,000 cancer deaths a year, certainly doctors would be first in line to make sure everyone is protected, right?
Sure...between half and two-thirds of the time, according to a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s how often providers recommend human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to their eligible female and male patients. Maybe cervical, anal, penile, and oropharyngeal cancers need to get together and claim a color that looks good on everyone: Is cerulean taken?
I know we all get frustrated with vaccine deniers, but why aren’t we at least recommending HPV vaccine to 100% of our patients? Is it because they won’t be our patients by the time they get cancer? Is it because the vaccine is more expensive and more painful than some (both true, but again, y’all, cancer)? Is it because it’s awkward to talk to parents about how their cherubic 11-year-old is one day going to grow up into an adult who is likely to have, you know, S-E-X?
Whatever the reason, I share Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Anne Schuchat’s disappointment that only 37.6% of eligible girls and 13.6% of eligible boys got vaccinated against HPV last year. When poor parental uptake is the problem, we need to work on education. But when we as providers are not even recommending the vaccine, you can color me embarrassed.
Yellow-bellied?
Parents look at me like I’m crazy all the time, which I resent, because I’m only crazy most of the time. For the first 3 months of their baby's life, I tell parents to call me at the first sign of a fever; then I tell them fever is a nothing to worry about. I say that sleeping face-down can be deadly until their baby learns to roll back-to-front; then I tell them not to worry. And for the first 7 days of life, I tell them that newborn jaundice can cause severe brain damage, until I start saying it’s normal, especially in breastfed infants. I flip-flop more than a candidate for Congress.