In an op-ed in the New York Times, Dennis Rosen, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital Boston, warns about the growing shortage of pediatric subspecialists. Rosen recently went to D.C. for Family Advocacy Day, where he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss how public policy shapes pediatric care. According to Rosen, the federal government should encourage young doctors to go into pediatric subspecialities with loan-forgiveness programs:
There are many reasons for the declining interest in pediatric subspecialties, including longer hours and the burden of medical school debt worsened by the low salaries paid during three extra years of training. These circumstances aren’t likely to change, but there is something we can do to attract practitioners… Children are not “little adults,” as pediatricians know well. They require treatment tailored to their needs. While there is great pressure to reduce government spending on health care, we need to invest in the training of pediatric subspecialists to make sure that our children have doctors who know best how to care for them.
Once you’ve read this story, make sure to check out the essay by the twins’ father as he discusses what it’s like to raise a transgender child.
Although born identical twins with matching DNA, Tom* and Ryan were two immensely different children. As toddlers, Tom entertained himself with toy trucks while Ryan fawned over his girl cousin’s Barbies and Little Mermaid dolls. Photo after photo of them at that age show Ryan with a t-shirt wrapped around his head, mimicking long, flowing hair. At age 4, he asked his mom, Cecelia, a heartbreaking question: When do I get to be a girl? A few months later, while assisting his dad, Dennis, with a plumbing job, he told him that he hated his own penis. Dennis choked up. “I cried and he cried, and then his brother came in and we all hugged and cried,” he says.
When he was 6, his parents sought professional advice. A local psychiatrist diagnosed Ryan with gender identity disorder (GID) or transgenderism, a rare condition in which a biological male or female feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and is extremely uncomfortable with his or her own gender. Full story »
Botox has long been popular among middle-aged Hollywood stars eager to eliminate frown lines and droopy eyelids. Now, a fresh-faced teen is causing a stir with her admission that she underwent cosmetic procedures in preparation for her debut on the upcoming season of Fox’s television comedy, Glee. Eighteen year old Charice Pempengo, a singer from the Philippines, reportedly had Botox injections and a skin-tightening procedure to narrow her face.
Brian Labow, MD, a pediatric plastic surgeon at Children’s Hospital Boston joins FOX25 Morning News to discuss the topic of teen cosmetic surgery.
Last night, Boston Med featured Children’s patient Sara Dumas as she underwent a life-saving heart transplant. If you missed the episode, watch it in full here. Our robust Facebook page was also bombarded by comments during the show; click here to read them but watch out for spoilers!
Here, Sara shares what it was like to undergo a major medical procedure and lengthy hospital stay–with camera crews capturing it all the while.
When I was four years old I was diagnosed with a heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Because the disease is genetic, doctors suggested other members of my family get tested as well; shortly after both my father and brother were diagnosed with the same condition. I was stable for most of my childhood, but when I was fifteen my condition became so bad that it was interfering with my life. Soon after, my brother and I were referred to Children’s Hospital Boston to be evaluated for heart transplants. Full story »
If you’re an adult who suffers heart failure, there are a number of devices that can support your heart and keep you healthy until you receive a donor heart. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for kids, and as many as 20 percent of kids waiting for a transplant die before an organ is available. Luckily, Dr. Fynn-Thompson is working to get a new artificial heart device—one designed specifically for kids—approved for use in the United States. Read on to learn about 12 year-old Keenan Griffin, who went into rapid heart failure and was saved by the use of the pediatric heart device.
Imagine that instead of drugs or surgery, you could use genes to treat or even prevent diseases. That’s the promise of gene therapy, an experimental technique where a gene is inserted into a patient’s cells to replace a non-functioning or disease carrying gene.
While gene therapy could potentially cure a variety of diseases, the development of gene therapy strategies against SCID-X1, better known as “bubble boy disease,” has been stalled since 2005, when five boys in Europe with SCID-X1, developed leukemia during clinical trials. Now, a new international trial, sponsored in the United States by Children’s Hospital Boston’s David Williams, MD, director of Translational Research, hopes to revive this potentially life-saving treatment. Full story »
“I’m about to start on a 30 hour fast, who’s with me? We can do it!” reads one post on a pro-anorexia website. Another girl posts a picture of her hipbone on her Twitter account, eliciting approving comments about how far it juts out.
The Internet can be a dangerous place for young people, from online predators to identity theft. Now, adding to the list of potential online hazards, are a slew of websites that actually encourage eating disorders by asserting that anorexia and bulimia are lifestyle choices rather than life-threatening mental illnesses.
Epilepsy is a disease that remains stubbornly bewildering—to the nearly three million Americans who have it and the doctors who treat it. In some cases, it can be traced to an underlying disease, injury or brain malformation. But in most cases, its origins are a mystery. Last night, 60 Minutes re-aired an episode featuring the epilepsy research of Children’s Frances Jensen, MD. Make sure to check out this blog post by Jensen, where she explains the importance of funding epilepsy research. Jensen was also just appointed president of the American Epilepsy Society.
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Tonight at 10 p.m. 
While gene therapy could potentially cure a variety of diseases, the development of gene therapy strategies against SCID-X1, better known as 
“I’m about to start on a 30 hour fast, who’s with me? We can do it!” reads one post on a pro-anorexia website. Another girl posts a picture of her hipbone on her Twitter account, eliciting approving comments about how far it juts out.
