A visit to the Emergency Room for children… with my daughter

As an ER doctor I see lots of kids – some of whom are very sick, many of whom have runny noses or a rash for 3 months…and I have to confess to wondering why parents bring their kids to the emergency room for children sometimes. So, I tend to under react with my own kids which has its moments – like the time I ran a mini inpatient asthma unit in my apartment when my son had a really bad asthma attack.

Yesterday, my daughter hurt her knee at ice hockey practice. Usually she stops crying after 5 minutes but this time she cried all the way home, at the ice arena, in the parking lot and during the whole car ride. I examined her knee – it didn’t look that bad. If she were someone I saw in the ER I don’t know if I would have gotten an x-ray, but she just kept crying and wouldn’t walk. Remembering how I under reacted with my son, I decided to be more cautious with my daughter. So, we carried her into the ER where they gave her some Motrin and a sticker. She had an x-ray of her knee and proceeded to skip out of the emergency room and run down the hall into our apartment. On the way home, we talked about mommy under reacting and over reacting.

Moral of the story, sometimes you have to stop being a doctor and just be a mom. And as a my daughter says “better to be an over reactor mom”. (I think she just liked the stickers)