By Clement Bottino, MD, Fellow in General Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston’s Primary Care Center
Like many people across the country, I was sad to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs.
I grew up with the technology Mr. Jobs created. My 5th grade final science project entitled “The Moray Eel” was typed on an Apple II computer. My college soundtrack was powered by a first generation iPod and nowadays I keep in touch with my sister who lives in Spain using face-time on my iPad.
The technology Steve Jobs created radically changed how we interact with computers, the way we listen to music, even the way we communicate with each other. Mr. Jobs was an innovator on a grand scale; some say a Thomas Edison or Henry Ford for our time.
Before Mr. Jobs, computers were big, clunky machines. There was no mouse, no desktop, just a solitary green cursor on the lower corner of an empty black screen. You needed to be an expert in the field to use one. …
It’s crucial that we cut health care costs.
It’s not just about the economy, although rising health care costs are wreaking havoc on budgets from the city level to the federal government. It’s also about access: if health care gets too expensive, many people simply cannot afford it.
In an effort to tackle this problem, many insurers are using “tiers.” In this system, hospitals and health care providers are placed into tiers based on cost. If employers or consumers use hospitals and doctors in the higher-cost tiers, they have to pay more to do so. …
From swine flu to obesity to dangerous plastics, many issues that affect children’s health garnered media attention in the year 2009. Here’s a rundown of the some of the biggest and most important stories:
This is the story that caught the most attention—for good reason. Not only is the H1N1 influenza virus very contagious, it appears to particularly affect young people. H1N1 caused more pediatric hospitalizations and deaths than we usually see with the seasonal influenza virus, which is very scary for parents (and pediatricians!). The virus led to countless school closings—sometimes to control the spread, and sometimes because there weren’t enough teachers left to teach! …