How to Talk to Your Child's Doctor: A Handbook for Parents »

Christopher M. Johnson, MD, MA (Santa Fe, NM), is a pediatrician in private practice at Pediatric Intensive Care Associates, PC. Formerly, he was employed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, as professor of pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He is the author of Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face, which was selected by Library Journal for its Best Consumer Health Books of 2007.

A two-year-old develops a nasty cough and after experiencing breathing problems, his concerned parents take him to the emergency room. The doctor on call diagnoses his symptoms as croup, prescribes treatment, but days later the cough is no better. After another trip to the emergency room, x-rays, respiratory therapy, and treatment for asthma, the little boy still cannot shake his cough and breathing difficulties. Finally, two weeks later, the family doctor suggests an examination by an ear-nose-and-throat specialist. Using a bronchoscope, the specialist finds a small piece of plastic from a toy lodged in the edge of the child's trachea. After removing the obstruction, the boy returns to normal within a day. In fact, he never had croup or asthma.

Could this lengthy, frustrating experience have been avoided?

In this illuminating guide to communicating with your child's doctor, pediatrician Christopher M. Johnson shows parents how to talk more effectively to their doctors about their children's health. Johnson takes the nonmedical layperson into the mindset of the physician examining a sick child for the first time. He demonstrates how doctors evaluate symptoms, interpret answers to their questions, and decide on a course of treatment. The book invites and then empowers parents to join their child's doctor as a partner in the diagnostic and therapeutic process. Each chapter ends with a communication checklist to help parents find the right words while visiting the doctor.

Dr. Johnson covers the following topics:
• The medical history and why it is so important
• How and why the doctor examines your child
• How a doctor uses lab tests
• How a doctorarrives at a diagnosis
• Time-honored medical wisdom that all doctors rely on
• The difference between specific treatments and supportive care when a diagnosis is uncertain
• Consulting specialists along with the family physician

The final chapter encourages the reader to become a sort of "junior doctor" by presenting several real-life cases and challenging the reader to work through the problem as a physician would.

This jargon-free and completely accessible guidebook will enable you to assist your child's doctor in the vital work of effectively caring for your child in health and illness.

Acknowledgments     7
Introduction     9
Like Ships Passing in the Night     11
The Medical History: Where It All Starts     33
Looking and Touching: How and Why the Doctor Examines Your Child     61
Sharp Needles and Cold X-Rays: How Doctors Use Common Tests     89
Putting It All Together: The Differential Diagnosis     123
What to Do: How Doctors Choose Therapies for Your Child     151
Why We Are This Way: How Doctors Are Trained     179
Knowing More and More About Less and Less: Managing Specialists     207
When the Conversation Turns Sour: How to Handle a Difficult Doctor     237
Putting It All Together: Solving Problems as a Doctor Does     263
Index     289