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How To Communicate With the Doctor When Your Child is
Sick
When your child is sick or injured,
every protective, nurturing feeling you have as a parent
comes rushing forward. It’s difficult to think
about anything except your child, and doing whatever
you can to relieve their suffering – right NOW!
Getting quality medical care, without feeling like you're
a number or the next piece on the assembly line is getting
harder. The days of having the same family doctor who
treated you, and your parents and now your kids, have
gone the way of house calls. Doctors today are feeling
the pressure too. They are being told to see more patients
and given less time to do it in. In fact, with HMO's,
health insurance cutbacks, and over-booked appointments,
you might not have that much time to talk to your child's
doctor during a well-child checkup, let alone now, when
your child is sick!
That’s why it’s important
to have a form that you keep in your child's medical
file in your child’s medical file that you can
pull out and use when your child is sick.
In order to decide about the best treatment
for your child, your doctor is going to need the answers
to some very specific questions.
You can create a form yourself on your
computer in less than an hour, and it will work for
every member of your family. It will let you keep track
of the treatment you're giving your child, monitor his/her
symptoms, and provide the doctor all the information
she needs.
The form should also include a section
where you can write down the questions you’ve got,
because once you’re on the phone or visiting with
the doctor, chances are that you’ll forget something.
Here is a checklist of information your
doctor needs to know:
First of all, your doctor is going to
need your child's name, age, date of birth and weight.
So put a place at the top of the form where you can
fill that information in. You might also want to include
the date for your own records.
Separate the rest of the form into the
following sections in a way that makes sense to you.
(The examples given might help you come up with your
own ideas).
1. Symptoms. What is the location,
duration and character of the discomfort? What brought
it on? Is there anything that aggravates the symptoms?
Has anything relieved the symptoms? When is the last
time your child had anything to eat or drink? What?
When? How much? What was your child doing at the time
the discomfort began?
2. Medications: Is your child
currently taking any medications? What about herbal
supplements? Vitamins? Anything for pain, fever, nausea,
diarrhea? List the substance, the dose in milligrams
and when it was last administered. Is your child on
any medication for a chronic condition?
3. Previous Medical History:
What is your child’s previous medical condition?
(This could be a chronic illness like diabetes or Crohn’s
disease, any major childhood illnesses, etc.) The doctor
will want to know about anything chronic (long-term)
or anything recent. Is your child allergic to any medications,
food or other substances?
4. Previous Surgeries or hospitalizations
(within the last 12 to 18 months): Has your child
had any previous surgeries? (appendectomy, tonsillitis,
etc.) If so, when? Who was the doctor? What hospital?
When? Has your child ever been admitted to the hospital?
If so, when? For what reason? How long were they a patient?
If you have copies of hospitalization records and procedure
reports in your child’s medical report, make sure
you take them with you if you need to see the doctor.
5. Current course of action.
Does your child have a fever? If so, when did it start?
How high is it? When did you check it? (How did you
check it? axillary, orally, rectally?) Did you give
him some medication to bring it down? If so, what and
how much? When? Has your child thrown up? Does your
child have a headache? What action have you taken to
relieve the symptoms?(This part of your form is so you
can tell the doctor what you've been doing and when.
6. Finally, you want to have a section
for your questions. That way you can write them
down as you think about them, so that when you do talk
to the doctor, you’ll know exactly what you want
to ask, and won’t forget anything. Some things
you might want to ask about include:
What symptoms should I watch out for? When should I
call you again, or bring my child in? What do you think
is causing my child's sickness? Is there more than one
condition that could be causing it?
Keeping track of this information and
having it available for your child's doctor will help
him to decide on a course of action, and treat your
child appropriately, so that he/she gets feeling better
as quickly as possible. And, that's what you want too!
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