I often think that I have the best job in the world. As a pediatrician working in a big-city clinic, here are some of the things I get to do:
- Pick up healthy babies, talk with them, see how they talk back, and support the parents who love them. (I don't have to give the shots -- we have wonderful nurses for that!)
- See kids with sore throats, wheezing, stomach aches, and rashes -- and help them get better.
- Talk with parents about their children's behavior and learning problems and help them figure out how to make things work better.
I also get to work with a group of pediatricians, bright young people from all over the globe who come to Cleveland for training. They bring their skills, knowledge, and passion for taking care of children. When I'm not doing all this, I get to do research. My kind of research is pretty easy to understand. I think of questions (What can we see when we watch parents reading? How can we get them reading more?), then I think of ways to answer them.
Oh, did I mention reading? Sixteen years ago, I developed a fascination with how children learn to read, and helped to start the first Reach Out and Read program. Reach Out and Read (ROR for short) is a way for pediatricians and family doctors to help children grow up loving books. We have volunteers reading aloud in our waiting rooms, and we give each patient a free specially selected picture book at every visit, starting at six months. It's amazing what a six-month-old baby can do with a board book! ROR now has about 2,500 sites all over the U.S., and it's starting up in other countries, too.
The last part of my job is writing about kids, parents, and pediatrics. I started five years ago, writing for a web site called DrSpock.com, and after that I had the chance to co-write the latest edition of the classic parenting book "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care." I took the book that Dr. Ben Spock wrote -- which has sold more than 50 million copies -- and added my own insights. "Baby and Child Care" covers every aspect of parenting, from choosing diapers to choosing college. But every day, the families I work with teach me something new.
And then there's my real "job": I've been married for 18 years to a wonderful woman I met on the first day of med school, and we have a 16-year-old daughter. If you read my blog, you'll get to know Grace pretty well, since being her dad has been such a force in shaping what kind of doctor -- and person -- I am. One thing Grace taught me is that being a parent can be really scary. Having an MD doesn't protect me from worrying about just about everything. I used to worry that Grace had cystic fibrosis (she didn't), and after that I worried that she'd never learn to speak (wrong again!), and now I worry about college and, well, life. So when I sit down with a mom who's worried about whatever, I feel we have a connection. To be a parent is to live in fear. And joy. And everything in between.
What do I want to do with this blog? Share some ideas, some worries, and some insights; pass along up-to-date science about children's health and behavior; and connect with parents from all over.
Robert Needlman is a board-certified developmental and behavioral pediatrician at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland and associate professor of pediatrics at Case Western-Reserve University School of Medicine. He has degrees from Yale University (B.A. in English Literature) and Yale Medical School.
