I am a worrier by nature. But I really took it up a notch when I was pregnant with my daughter and my son. I worried about drinking wine before I knew I was pregnant, loud crowd noise at football games and even feta cheese (unpasteruized cheese is linked to listeria). How I wish I had access to the expertise of Texas TIPS, a new service sponsored by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Texas Teratogen Information Pregnancy Service (TIPS) gives pregnant and nursing women advice from trained genetic counselors on what to do if they have been exposed to a teratogen—a substance that could be harmful to their baby. Read more about their recommendations in my latest article for UTHealthLeader, Hello? Is my baby OK?
I've been a little behind in updating my blog lately, so this one's a twofer! First, I share some useful tips on how to talk to teachers if your child has emotional or behavioral problems, in my latest News and Notes article for The Menninger Clinic, a world leader in psychiatric treatment, research and education headquartered in Houston. Any parent of a school-age child knows how challenging it can be to communicate with teachers. It is often difficult to know exactly what is going on inside the classroom. Who is right: your child, or the teacher? Communication is even more critical for parents of children with emotional and behavioral problems. “Teachers hold valuable information related to a child’s social and academic life,” says Elizabeth Newlin, director of the Adolescent Treatment Program at The Menninger Clinic. A teacher’s insight into a child’s emotional and behavioral changes plays a key role in the treatment process, she adds. Find out more in my article, Four ways to communicate with teachers about your special-needs child.
Next, I tackle tinnitus in my UT HealthLeader story, Tinnitus: When Silence Becomes Deafening. The inner noise of tinnitus is distracting and bothersome, making it difficult for people with the condition to work or live a normal life, says Nabil Al-Muhtaseb, director of the Audiology Hearing, Tinnitus and Balance Clinic at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The sounds of tinnitus range from a mild ringing or buzzing to a high-pitched, insistent whine, depending on the severity. Luckily, new treatments can help. That wasn't always the case. “When I was in medical school 30 years ago, they used to tell us, ‘There is nothing we can do for tinnitus,’” says Muhtaseb, one of the few physicians-turned-audiologists. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, we have developed many ways of managing hearing loss and tinnitus in particular.”
When writing these stories, I am always amazed by the wealth of medical technology and expertise right in my own backyard. It is a blessing to call Houston home.
Are you getting enough sleep these days? I know this writer and mom to two little ones is not. But, at least I don't have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for a 7:30 a.m. class, like the sleep-deprived teens I discuss in my new UT HealthLeader article "A Cry for Sleep." Did you know that only 30 percent of teens sleep at least eight hours--at a time when they should be sleeping more than nine hours a night? And an estimated one in four teenagers sleep only six hours a night or less. “Kids out there are chronically sleep deprived,” says Robert E. Roberts, PhD, a professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health and author of several studies on sleep and adolescents. “They are at much greater risk for depression, reduced academic performance, they think their health is worse, they report more problems of all kinds at school, are less satisfied with life in general and are more prone to use drugs.”
How can we help? Roberts says communities should encourage school districts to start high school later in the day. In the meantime, parents can try their best to help their teens establish healthy sleep routines, including not watching television or playing computer games before bedtime.
Poor kids. I feel your pain and drink my Venti latte in honor of your sleeplessness and mine. Ahhh.
I think everyone has nurtured the fantasy at one time of leaving behind community, connections and maddeningly persistent telephone solicitors (or bill collectors), and going someplace where nobody knows our name--a kind of anti-Cheers. The emergency room, however, is not the place we want to be anonymous when we are sick or injured. We want our doctors to have the latest information about our health at their fingertips, to help them give us the best care possible. Yet we might as well be blank slates, I learned when researching electronic health records for my latest UT HealthLeader article.
“We are not sharing data across organizations right now,” says Dean Sittig, PhD, professor of Biomedical Informatics at the UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics, who together with Ryan Radecki, MD, coauthored a commentary in the July 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association recommending electronic medical records (also called electronic health records or EHRs) as a way to improve patient safety. He estimates that only 40 to 50 percent of academic centers, and fewer than 20 percent of small doctor practices, use electronic health records.
Thankfully, the news isn't all bleak. Major academic centers and affiliated hospitals are implementing sophisticated electronic health records systems that increase patient safety and convenience. And experts at UTHealth are working with independent physician practices to help them get with the program. You can read more in my article: For the Record: Why we need electronic records.
Those countless hours you spend playing video or computer games may actually pay off for you someday. Your awesome "skills" could even help you save a life. Pretty cool, huh? A surgeon in my latest UT HealthLeader article, TORS: New Life-Saving Robotic Surgery, uses a controller similar to a video game controller to manipulate tiny surgical instruments into tight spaces inside the throat, where a surgeon’s hands just can’t fit. The technology lets surgeons go through the mouth instead of cutting through the neck, and remove cancerous tumors.
“The robot helps us be minimally invasive, and to do many things with minimal interruption,” says Ron Karni, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School. Karni performs the surgery at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston. “It works just like a video game,” he adds.
The robot transmits images of the throat to a computer screen, above the patient. The surgeon watches the screen while guiding the instruments with a controller—like an intensely focused gamer.
Karni estimates the cure rate for throat cancer using TORS to be close to 90 percent, compared to the 60 to 70 percent with traditional chemotherapy and radiation alone.
Those are pretty good odds.
And the odds that playing Wii will get my children into medical school?
Slim.
I'm putting my money on Xbox.