Debora Porter

Dr. Mwamba Malekani shares her journey that led to a successful match into a Psychiatry residency program at Authority Health GME in Detroit, Michigan. During this interview, she expresses her appreciation for UMHS and why she decided to attend UMHS over other Caribbean Medical Schools. In addition, she talks about sponsors and mentors and why she chose Psychiatry as her medical specialty. To read her in-depth interview with Scott Harrah, MA, Director of Digital Content at UMHS, please go to this link: https://www.umhs-sk.org/blog/dr.-mwamba-malekani-on-psychiatry-residency-at-authority-health-gme-in-detroit To learn more about Psychiatry as a specialty, please read this informative article: https://www.umhs-sk.org/blog/become-a-psychiatrist Please also check out related videos about how to become a psychiatrist here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_-WDU1Vnt1KRO8Hs6Y-5LbGpLipkVIY If you are interested in learning more about the University of Medicine and Health Science and how...

Dr. Mwamba Malekani shares her journey that led to a successful match into a Psychiatry residency program at Authority Health GME in Detroit, Michigan. During this interview, she expresses her appreciation for UMHS and why she decided to attend UMHS over other Caribbean Medical Schools. In addition, she talks about sponsors and mentors and why she chose Psychiatry as her medical specialty. To read her in-depth interview with Scott Harrah, MA, Director of Digital Content at UMHS, please go to this link: https://www.umhs-sk.org/blog/dr.-mwamba-malekani-on-psychiatry-residency-at-authority-health-gme-in-detroit To learn more about Psychiatry as a specialty, please read this informative article: https://www.umhs-sk.org/blog/become-a-psychiatrist Please also check out related videos about how to become a psychiatrist here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_-WDU1Vnt1KRO8Hs6Y-5LbGpLipkVIY If you are interested in learning more about the University of Medicine and Health Science and how...

  With kids back in school learning their “5 Rs” — R eading, (w) R iting, (a) R ithmatic,  R espect and R esponsibility) — pediatrician Lewis First, M.D. reminds parents of infants and toddlers about the  5 Rs of Early Education  to help enhance early brain development: • The first R is for Reading. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends reading daily to your child starting in infancy to build their language, literacy, and social-emotional skills such as their imagination. It’s never too early to start reading to your baby! • The second R is for Recreation. Play, sing, and talk with your baby throughout the day as another way to stimulate your baby’s development. • The third R is for Routines. Make sure there is consistency in when your child eats, plays, and sleeps. This teaches them what to expect and what is expected of them. For example, the phrase, “Bath, Brush, Book, Bed,” is both fun to say and a great way to remind your child of a structured p...

  One month after granting emergency use authorization for adults to receive a brand new and different kind of COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  approved the use of Novavax for teenagers 12-17 years old. Novavax is late to the vaccine party. American teenagers 16-17 years old became eligible to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine along with adults in December 2020; 12-15-year-olds became eligible in May 2021. The Moderna vaccine was approved for use in teens 12 years and up in November 2021. (The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has only been approved for adults and has fallen out of favor due to episodes of serious blood clots in a tiny number of recipients.) The new “kid” in town is not a mRNA vaccine like Pfizer and Moderna, or a viral vector vaccine like J&J. Instead, Novavax is a more traditional, protein-based vaccine similar to others that have been safely used for decades (influenza, hepati...

To identify childhood and parental factors associated with statin initiation in children with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH), including underlying genetic diagnosis or parental premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00777-6/fulltext?rss=yes

Physician-scientists play an essential role in the translation of basic laboratory discoveries into novel therapies to improve outcomes of disease, yet the “vanishing physician-scientist” remains a problem.1 Successes in advancing outcomes of children with complex diseases are often limited by the lack of expertise in moving basic science to the bedside, especially in the setting of rare disorders, with small patient numbers at each center. Diverse teams in which physician scientists collaborate with individuals with a variety of research methods expertise are necessary to translate discovery into new diagnostics and therapeutics. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00776-4/fulltext?rss=yes

  Citing “a gaping racial disparity” to explain why more White women initiate breastfeeding (75%) than Black women (59%), organizers of Black Breastfeeding Week list five reasons why the celebration, held every year during the last week of August, is so important: 1. The high black infant mortality rate : Black babies are dying at twice the rate (in some place, nearly triple) the rate of white babies. This is a fact. The high infant mortality rate among black infants is mostly to their being disproportionately born too small, too sick or too soon. These babies need the immunities and nutritional benefit of breast milk the most. According to the CDC, increased breastfeeding among black women could decrease infant mortality rates by as much as 50%. 2. High rates of diet-related disease : When you look at all the health conditions that breast milk—as the most complete “first food,” has been proven to reduce the risks of—African American children have them the most. From up...

The Buckets by Greg Cravens ( GoComics.com )           source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/08/28/sunday-funnies-520/

A 10-year-old child presented after lightning struck the steel rope to which she was attached while hiking. She was alert, without pain, and in good clinical condition. Pulse was 90 beats/min, ad respiratory rate 15 breath/min. On physical examination a Lichtenberg figure, a superficial, tortuous and fern-like skin lesion, was noted on the medial aspect of the right forearm (Figure 1). Electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood examinations, including troponin and CPK were all unremarkable. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00771-5/fulltext?rss=yes

A 17-month-old boy presented with a one-year history of asymptomatic, multiple yellow-orange papules and nodules that hadgradually increased in number and size. Physical examination revealed numerous, discrete, yellowish-orange papules and nodules measuring 1-6 mm in diameter on the head, face (Figures 1 and 2), neck and upper back. He had no signs of extracutaneous involvement. Laboratory investigations, including complete blood count, serum lipid levels, renal panel and liver tests, were all within normal range. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00717-X/fulltext?rss=yes

A previously healthy ten-year-old boy presented to the emergency department with two days of persistent and severe epigastric abdominal pain with anorexia and mild constipation, but no nausea or vomiting . No fever, pyrosis, respiratory difficulty or urinary or genital complaints were present. The patient denied any history of abdominal trauma. On admission, he was mildly tachycardic (100bpm), normotensive (115/58mmHg), and afebrile (tympanic temperature 36.4ºC). Focal tenderness on the epigastrium and umbilical region was elicited on abdominal palpation; Blumberg, Rovsing, Markle, and vesicular Murphy signs were absent. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00778-8/fulltext?rss=yes

Bears Dancing in the Forest from BBC Earth on YouTube : As winter turns to spring and the bears stop hibernating, they need to shed their winter coats the only way they know how.     source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/08/27/cool-video-of-the-week-521/

*This post originally appeared on The PediaBlog on August 26, 2021.   Youth “Under A Scorching Sun”     [Editor’s note: The summer of 2022 has seen record-breaking heat and wildfires in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and severe drought affecting the U.S. , China , and nearly  two-thirds of the European Union . In just the last five weeks, there have been five instances of 1-in-1,ooo-year rain and flood events in the U.S. What’s clear is that as the planet continues to warm because of humanity’s fondness of fossil fuels, the weather continues to get weirder and the consequences grow more dangerous.]   Swedish climate advocate Greta Thunberg joined fellow youth climate leaders from Mexico, Bangladesh, and Kenya in writing a scathing op-ed in the New York Times last week following the release of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( The PediaBlog covered that on Tuesday ): Last week, some of the world’s leading cl...

  Two recently published studies on the long-term neurologic consequences of COVID-19 confirm the importance of taking every precaution possible — using every layer of protection available — to avoid the infection altogether. We already knew that infections with SARS-CoV-2 can have profound impacts on adult brains. In February,  The PediaBlog spotlighted a study revealing the mechanism for long-term neurologic symptoms that ranged from mild dizziness, headaches, and loss of smell to severe brain inflammation (encephalitis) and stroke: The study identifies virus-induced changes in the brain’s blood vessels — “abnormalities in cerebral microvascular function” — associated with long-term neurologic impairment, resulting in worsened cognitive function, mental health, functional recovery, and quality of life.   We also learned that your brain on COVID was more likely to experience “brain fog” and other cognitive impairments, and symptoms of mental illness...

Fineman,et al- concluded that very preterm children produced with ART had results comparable to those conceived naturally. (1) source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00772-7/fulltext?rss=yes

Sleep patterns of 419 toddlers with congenital heart disease were comparable with the normative population except for increased likelihood across the cohort of sleeping in parents’ room and increased disrupted sleep in children aged 18-23 months. Disrupted sleep patterns were associated with lower maternal education and increased medical complexity. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00767-3/fulltext?rss=yes

  In addition to it being National Breastfeeding Month and National Immunization Awareness Month , August is also Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month . Supported by the American Academy of Ophthalmology , the annual observance highlights the importance of protecting and improving eye health and vision in children. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Eye Institute has an informative  webpage geared to help children “learn about their eyes, how they work, and how to keep them healthy.” Most people rely on their eyes to see and make sense of the world around them. If you’re reading this, your eyes are hard at work. You use your eyes for countless other things, too, like doing homework, playing sports, looking for that favorite shirt, or watching out for the neighbor’s angry dog. That’s why it’s important to take care of your eyes.   These 10 healthy vision tips can help preserve and protect the eyesight of every child: 1. Eat right to p...

To investigate the association between early life exposures during the first 1,000 days (conception to age 24 months) and aortic intima-media thickness (aIMT), an early indicator of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, in youth. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00769-7/fulltext?rss=yes

To describe trends and correlates of acid-suppresants therapy usage during the first year of life. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00758-2/fulltext?rss=yes

To estimate the risk of recurrence of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) upon revaccination and to determine among patients with suspected vaccine allergy whether allergy skin test positivity was associated with AEFI recurrence. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00668-0/fulltext?rss=yes

To describe the timing of first extubation in extremely preterm infants and explore the relationship between age at first extubation, extubation outcome, and death/respiratory morbidities. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00760-0/fulltext?rss=yes

To assess the associations between eating speed, adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors and diet quality in a cohort of Spanish preschool-children. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00759-4/fulltext?rss=yes

  Yesterday on The PediaBlog , we reviewed some advice that will hopefully result in a happy, healthy, and normal school year for our kids. Johns Hopkins Medicine highlights the power of prevention in protecting your child’s health in school: Children get sick more often than adults because their immune systems are not as developed. At schools and daycare centers, they are in close contact with one another, increasing the odds of sharing germs and infections. Parents can help protect children with vaccinations and by teaching (and practicing) basic good hygiene. Today’s vaccines protect against some of the oldest, most dreaded infectious scourges of childhood. Developed through intense research efforts around the globe, they confer protection that past generations of parents could only have dreamed about. Vaccines are critical to protect your child’s health as well as the health of those around him or her, especially the most vulnerable in our communities: the young an...

Patient consent was obtained from the patient’s father. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00768-5/fulltext?rss=yes

  Is everyone ready for a great school year? It’s fair to say that most parents and students would at least settle for a “normal” school year like we had before COVID barged into our lives two-and-a-half years ago. There’s a very good chance we will get “normal” or something very close to it. The new back-to-school COVID rules issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (and reviewed by The PediaBlog last week ) reflects the agency’s confidence that everyone 6 months of age and older has now had ample opportunity to receive the primary series of safe, effective, and free COVID vaccines. Add to that the fact that most Americans (including many who were vaccinated) have some degree of natural immunity after being infected with Omicron during the spring and summer. And the CDC is certain from the evidence gathered over more than two pandemic years that other precautions add additional layers of protection, like wearing well-fitting face masks (N95 or KN95) indoors whe...

A 4-year-old girl presented with acute left upper quadrant abdominal pain and anorexia of four days duration. She had no relevant medical history and no trauma history was reported. Physical examination showed abdominal guarding and peritoneal irritation in the left upper quadrant. The rest of the examination was normal. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00730-2/fulltext?rss=yes

We appreciate the positive comments and thoughtful insights provided by Sajid et al. Given the large contribution that prematurity has on neonatal morbidity and mortality, our investigation focused on the comparison of mortality and early respiratory outcomes of very preterm infants (<32 week’s gestation) conceived via assisted reproductive technology (ART) vs spontaneous conception. Importantly, spontaneously conceived infants were matched in a 2:1 fashion by gestational age and multiple gestation status, and comparisons were adjusted for differences in sociodemographic status between the two groups. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00773-9/fulltext?rss=yes

Shrimp And Grits by Andy Marlette ( Arcamax.com/thefunnies )             source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/08/21/sunday-funnies-519/

Vorticity 3 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo: I wanted to do something a little more methodical, slower paced and majestic this time, fitting with the music and the footage. I hope you enjoy that! The lightning was off charts this year for me, so much night-time structure and awesomeness, plus the daytime supercells were incredible.     source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/08/20/cool-video-of-the-week-520/

*This post originally appeared on The PediaBlog on August 19, 2019.   The Backpack’s Back     As physical therapist and friend of The PediaBlog , John Duffy, prepares to send his own kids back to school, he doesn’t want parents to buy into the fearful “nonsense” he hears that carrying heavy backpacks will somehow damage the backs of their growing children: School is ready to start soon, and too many in my own profession will be coming out with “backpack back” and “text neck” nonsense. Installing fear into people just isn’t cool. We aren’t fragile entities just ready to break apart. So with your child’s backpack, provide gradual load progression… it’s what the body prefers. And once up to that hefty weight that made me chuckle with my own kids, consider it a form of exercise that most of them don’t get enough of anyway.   Writing on his practice’s Facebook blog, Duffy cites a review study that concludes: “Available evidence does not support that schoo...

Monkeypox infections in the U.S. — 8/17/22 (CDC)   In July, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox — a viral skin infection related to smallpox — a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The outbreak appears to have started in May in East and Central Africa where the virus is endemic, and quickly spread to other nations in Africa and Europe. Two weeks after the WHO declaration, on August 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed suit by announcing a public health emergency in the United States as this country saw its case count rise. When The PediaBlog first reported on the outbreak on June 7, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of concern about the virus with a funny-sounding name. At the time, the WHO counted 790 cases of monkeypox in 28 countries and the CDC identified 21 cases in 11 states. Since then, the outbreak has widened and become a truly global phenomenon. Worldwide , 38,019 cases of monkeypox in 93 countries have been c...

To evaluate the frequency and severity of new cases of youth-onset type 2 diabetes in the United States during the first year of the pandemic compared with the mean of the prior two years. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00719-3/fulltext?rss=yes

To evaluate associations between changes in weight, length, and weight/length ratio during infancy and outcomes later in life among individuals born extremely preterm. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00724-7/fulltext?rss=yes

Child physical abuse is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children and is often unrecognized by frontline providers in emergency departments (EDs).(1) This problem is heightened for providers in general EDs, where the majority of US children present for emergency care, and abusive injuries are missed more frequently than in pediatric EDs.(2) Clinical decision support (CDS) can improve clinical outcomes by providing clinicians with filtered knowledge and person-specific information at appropriate times in the health care encounter. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00729-6/fulltext?rss=yes

Supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (U01HG007292; MPIs: B.W, Goddard, Leo). The author declares no conflicts of interest. source https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00728-4/fulltext?rss=yes

  Last month on The PediaBlog , we examined the importance of good sleep hygiene for school success in children. We noted that good quality sleep has become  a precious commodity  for ensuring teen physical and mental health and academic achievement. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Insufficient sleep is associated with lower academic achievement in middle school, high school and college, as well as higher rates of absenteeism and tardiness.” According to the Sleep Foundation , problems associated with insufficient sleep include decreased attention, impaired memory, slow processing speeds, weakened sequential thinking, and reduced creativity. All these traits need to be strong in order for students to learn efficiently and critically in the classroom, and they grow more important as children reach the higher grades. Mood and behavior can also be affected by sleep deprivation, further detracting from school performance. Symptoms include excessive day...

Nutrition 4 Kids — Back to School   Jennifer Yoon, RDN, LDN, IBCLC Pediatric Dietitian and Lactation Consultant AHN Pediatrics (St. Clair)     Back to School time is so exciting! It is a time of new teachers, new classmates, new books and supplies. Back to school is also a great time to reboot, or begin, your family’s healthy eating routines. Here are some tips for getting a healthy start on new school year: Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day . A healthy breakfast is high in whole grains, lower in sugar, and includes some protein to provide enough energy to get them to lunchtime. Use the food label to select healthy grains for breakfast by looking for foods with less than 3 grams of added sugar, and whole grain listed as one of the first three ingredients. Fresh fruit is a great addition to breakfast as well. Balance the whole grains with a good source of protein such as milk, yogurt, peanut butter, eggs, or a lean meat like turkey bacon, turkey ...