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Burning Bridges

May 28th, 2014 by drcoplan

burning bridges
I have spent my career trying to build bridges between the educational and medical communities. Now, it appears that an ever-increasing number of school district administrators are intent on destroying what few linkages exist. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s too soon to tell.

October 17th, 2013 by drcoplan

globe
“It’s too soon to tell.”
I don’t say it very often, but I’ve learned through experience that sometimes it’s the right answer. My crystal ball worked the best right after I completed my training, but Mother Nature has humbled me several times since then, and now my crystal ball doesn’t work so well. It’s not a pleasant experience to promise parents that things will work out fine, and then they don’t. And on the flip side of the coin, it’s almost as bad to predict problems that never arise. Of course parents are happy that the worst did not occur, but they are justifiably upset at the unnecessary anguish I have put them through.

When the exam is ambiguous, the doctor’s challenge is to resist the feeling “I need to have the answer, and I need to have it right now.” This feeling is not just a reflection of the parents’ wish to know (after all, they came to me in the first place because I’m the consultant, the Mighty OZ who sees all and knows all). There’s a deeper level to the problem: From the time we entered school, we’ve been trained to put up our hand when we know the answer, and the one who gets the answer first is the winner. “I know! I know!” the first-grader exclaims, thrusting his or her hand into the air. The same emphasis on having a quick answer underpins all the timed exams that doctors have taken over the course of their careers. To be sure, there are some medical situations in which speed is vital: CPR, for example. CPR is akin to atomic physics, where particles collide in microseconds. Child Development, on the other hand, is more like geology, where mountains form over millions of years. (The reason I avoided Child Development in my training as a pediatric resident was because of my misperception that “nothing happens.” I was just using the wrong time scale.) Read the rest of this entry »

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