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Biomedical subjects

M I Reiff

Publications and source records attributed to M I Reiff.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

Adolescent school failure: failure to thrive in adolescence.

The role of the primary clinician in dealing with school failure can be critical by linking the epidemiological with the clinical and encompassing the pediatric/adolescent life span. It includes components of social and public health advocacy, preventive medicine, evaluation, education, treatment, and referral. The most effective interventions are early and multifaceted. The primary care role includes: community advocacy; counseling about prenatal drug and alcohol abuse; early detection and treatment for attentional disorders, underachievement, and learning disabilities; interviews addressing multiple risk factors, grades, school attitudes, behavior, and friends; anticipatory guidance; education about individual learning style and good "learning hygiene"; early referral and intervention for preadolescent conduct problems and parent-child conflict; early referrals for family distress; and prevention of substance abuse and adolescent pregnancy.

Adolescent↗

Variability in the management of the febrile infant under 2 months of age.

The management in the emergency department of febrile infants less than 2 months of age is influenced by the standard of practice in the community. We sought to determine if uniform practices existed across the United States. Individual academically based faculty from 154 (61%) United States pediatric residency programs responding to a questionnaire on the emergency department management of febrile infants less than 2 months of age showed great variability. Twenty-nine respondents reported written policies and 103 reported informal but defined guidelines for the evaluation and management of infants seen at their institutions. There was little consensus among the respondents as to the definition of fever in this age group. Those at institutions with formal policies reported using more laboratory tests in the evaluation. Respondents differed on the number and types of tests used and on antibiotic administration. University affiliation, type of population served, or presence of advanced training programs in ambulatory pediatrics were not related to the type of policy. The care of the young febrile infant varies greatly.

Fever↗

Hospital influences on early infant-feeding practices.

Newborn nursery nursing staff members were surveyed to determine their attitudes and teaching practices regarding breast- and bottle-feeding. Concurrently, mothers using this nursery responded to a structured interview concerning their infant-feeding practices at 14 to 21 days postpartum and possible hospital influences on these practices. The nursing staff strongly advocated breast-feeding and did not favor specific bottle-feeding practices or products. Nursing staff counseling was generally interpreted by mothers as supporting breast-feeding, but this did not deter a large proportion of mothers who stated an initial preference for breast-feeding from introducing formula as a supplementary or exclusive form of infant feeding during the short study period. Almost all mothers doing any amount of bottle-feeding at the time of their interview were using the same formula brand and a ready-to-feed preparation used during their hospital stay. Other influences on mother's infant-feeding patterns are discussed. It is concluded that the hospital staff and routines exerted a stronger influence on mothers' infant-feeding practices by nonverbal teaching (the hospital "modeling" of infant formula products) than by verbal teaching (counseling supporting breast-feeding). Future studies might explore new ways of supporting mothers who desire to breast-feed by designing innovative hospital routines to model breast-feeding rather than feeding by infant formula.

Adolescent↗

Phototherapy in full-term infants with hemolytic disease secondary to ABO incompatibility.

Current guidelines for treatment of hemolytic disease of the newborn make no differentiation between ABO and Rh incompatibility. A protocol that prolonged the observation period in full-term, ABO-incompatible infants with positive Coombs' tests who were otherwise healthy was tested. Postponement of treatment made it possible to determine more accurately which infants needed phototherapy. This dramatically decreased the number of infants treated without increasing their risk of requiring exchange transfusion.

ABO Blood-Group System↗

Jaundice in the full-term neonate.

Hyperbilirubinemia is the most common problem experienced by the full-term infant in the immediate neonatal period. The development of jaundice was prospectively investigated in 866 newborns. Significant correlations were found between the serum bilirubin level and the method of birth, perinatal complications, blood group incompatibilities, birth weight, and method of feeding. Breast-feeding was highly related to the development of exaggerated jaundice. The most common occurrence of jaundice requiring phototherapy was in breast-feeding infants in whom no cause for the jaundice could be determined. Study findings were most compatible with a theory of relative caloric deprivation as an explanation of the increased incidence of hyperbilirubinemia found in breast-fed newborns.

Bilirubin↗

Teaching well child care.

Despite recommendations that the emphasis of the well child visit be on behavior and development, some studies indicate that pediatricians continue to spend a relatively small percentage of each well baby visit on these subjects. One factor contributing to the discrepancy between current recommendations and practice may be the way we teach residents to perform this task. In this study, we investigated and evaluated current methods for teaching well child care. Our data indicate that the content of well child care is being taught, but that problems with teaching setting, methods and frequency of supervision, and lack of formal evaluation may be among the factors which contribute to our continued inability to change the focus of well child visits.

Allied Health Personnel↗

Clinical estimation of liver size in newborn infants.

Liver size was measured in 100 healthy newborn infants of gestational ages 35 to 44 weeks. A mean liver span of 5.9 +/- 0.8 cm was determined in these infants by measuring the distance between the percussed upper and palpated lower liver borders along the midclavicular line. This value correlated well with measurements derived from percussing both borders (r = .8) and correlated poorly with measurements of liver projection below the costal margin (r = .55). The practice of reporting liver projection below the costal margin as a single indicator of liver size should be discouraged.

Gestational Age↗

Supervision of pediatric trainees in biosocial pediatrics. A survey of graduate programs.

To assess the current state of supervisory methods in biosocial pediatrics, fellowship programs in ambulatory pediatrics (AP), adolescent medicine (AM), and behavioral pediatrics/child development (BP/CD) were surveyed. Fifty-eight responses (98%) were analyzed. Forty-five percent of programs dealt extensively with behavioral pediatric problems. The AM and BP/CD fellowships were more psychosocially oriented than the AP programs. Ninety-two percent of AM and 82% of BP/CD programs used a formal supervisory style, but 48% of AP programs relied solely on unscheduled supervision. Direct observation or audiovisual tapes were used by only 57% of the programs. Significantly fewer AP programs used such objective methods. Supervision of biosocial pediatric programs should be formalized and include direct observation or audiovisual tapes.

Education, Medical, Graduate↗