Category: Zone One

After completing my internship in the Pediatric Unit at a local hospital, I was exposed to how much we have failed as a community. Better yet, as humans in general. We are struggling to live average healthy lives due to our lack of knowledge. While being in the unit I have come to the conclusion that it is the job of parents to teach basic fundamentals such as being healthy, staying safe, practicing safe sex, and personal hygiene. On more than three occasions I have come across mothers who could not provide this basic information because they themselves do not have the answers. You may be wondering well what is the Pediatricians job? Their job is to maintain a child’s health and if a problem should arise then they will take action and actually do what their job descriptions says.

While scheduling patients providers allot 15 min time slots per patient. How much teaching is really happening in that 15 min time period? I can guarantee, not much if any. Providers in the clinic I interned at were either completely over worked or did not have much experience working at a large unit of that nature. The providers who were over worked were once great providers according to patient feedback but overtime their ability to care for patients are decreasing. The providers that lacked experience in large un8 were excellent providers who held themselves at a higher standard. These were the providers that only made space for very few patients and only came on specific days at specific times.

At the clinic parents only knew their child needed a physical. They did not know what that meant or why they needed one, they just knew it happened once a year and they did not care what provider completed their child’s physical as long as it was completed. There is a number of things wrong with this. The first being that this style of parenting is very common. Parents are not investing enough time into their children. The second issue is that you never know what kind of doctor you will be allowing to care for your child with this approach. You might get one who cares or one who does not. It is the parents responsibly to make sure their child gets the best care possible. The third problem is not knowing why a child is being seen. During physicals a child may receive a few vaccines and if you do not know what is being administered to your child you can possibly do more harm than good. The last problem is understanding your child. Children/Teens will not discuss things with people they are not familiar with. So allowing your child to see any provider tells me that you do not care much and are not instilling the basic fundamentals that I perviously spoke of. How do I know this? If you were investing that time and knowledge you would value each and every trip to the doctors office to make sure your child is being feed gems and jewels by his/her provider.

We as a community have to do better in getting the right information out there. It is so important that our youth knows how to stay safe and healthy. It all falls down to educating ourselves and being surrounded by safe practices. The hospital I interned at is in a high HIV rated area and they do an amazing job of getting that knowledge out there, they help people get tested and help them receive treatment if needed. They do this by running outreach programs to visit high traffic areas. They have signs and posters all over the hospital. They have so much directed for adults but they have forgotten our youth. That is where we need to step in to raise awareness of the forever growing STD rates or the Teen pregnancy rates. Had children known where to get information or if social media overflowed with conversations having to do with safe practices those rates would diminish by a lot.

It is important that our youth knows where all the help is so that they do not feel like they do not know what to do in a time of need. They need to understand that they are entitled to use each and every resource out there because they are created for the greater good of them and their future. If you are a parent who does not know where to start, you should begin by educating yourself with the laws and rights of your state. Get familiar with what teens are researching on the internet and find those answers so you already know what to expect. If you are a teen who is lost, you can take that same approach but take an extra step and get familiar with yourself and your health. Find out the areas you lack and the areas you think you are familiar with and research them become fluent in the language of Adolescent/growing living.

If you live in the NYC area check out the NYC Health site https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/teen-home.page. If you do not live in NYC Google your states health site. Every state has specific laws and regulations in regards to child/adolescent health.

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-Tatyana