Who counsels parents of newborns who are carriers of sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis?

Our objective was to describe: 1) physicians' knowledge of whether genetic counseling is provided to parents of newborns with sickle cell trait (SCT) or who are cystic fibrosis carriers (CFC), and 2) the prevalence of genetic counseling provided by primary care physicians. We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive survey of 600 randomly-sampled Michigan-based pediatricians and family physicians, assessing physician knowledge of where and whether genetic counseling is received by parents whose newborns are carriers. Chi-squared testing determined associations between genetic counseling location and physician demographic characteristics.

Which sources of child health advice do parents follow?

Background: Parents consult other child health information sources in addition to the pediatrician. There are little data describing which of these sources parents are likely to follow.

Methods: The authors surveyed 543 parents of patients in 6 pediatric practices in southeast Michigan shortly after an office visit to determine the degree to which parents report following advice from 7 common child health sources on a scale from 1 (don't follow at all) to 7 (follow completely).

Segregation, civil rights, and health disparities: the legacy of African American physicians and organized medicine, 1910-1968.

Between 1910 and 1968, the National Medical Association (NMA) repeatedly clashed with the American Medical Association (AMA) over the latter organization's racial bars to membership and other health policy issues. The NMA, founded in 1895 as a nonexclusionary medical society to provide a voice for disenfranchised black physicians and patients, struggled in its early years, during which AMA leadership took scant notice of it. But skirmishes ensued over such actions as stigmatizing racial labels in the AMA's American Medical Directory, which, beginning in 1906, listed all U.

Creating a segregated medical profession: African American physicians and organized medicine, 1846-1910.

An independent panel of experts, convened by the American Medical Association (AMA) Institute for Ethics, analyzed the roots of the racial divide within American medical organizations. In this, the first of a 2-part report, we describe 2 watershed moments that helped institutionalize the racial divide. The first occurred in the 1870s, when 2 medical societies from Washington, DC, sent rival delegations to the AMA's national meetings: an all-white delegation from a medical society that the US courts and Congress had formally censured for discriminating against black physicians; and an integrated delegation from a medical society led by physicians from Howard University.

Steroid inhaler adherence, flu vaccine receipt, and race: associations with the quality of the parent-physician relationship for asthmatic children.

Rationale: Steroid inhaler adherence and influenza immunization rates are low for asthmatic minority children.

Objective: To examine associations between parents' adherence to administering their child's steroid inhaler, influenza vaccine receipt, and parental perceptions of the primary care experience.

Methods: In 2006 we interviewed parents of children aged 2-12 who had an asthma-related physician visit in 2004 and 2005 about steroid inhaler use and influenza vaccine receipt.

Measuring African-American parents' cultural mistrust while in a healthcare setting: a pilot study.

Background: African Americans' mistrust of healthcare is often cited as a cause of racial disparities in health and has been linked to cultural mistrust. African-American parents' level of cultural mistrust while in a general healthcare setting has not been previously measured.

Objective: To determine the performance, participant acceptance, feasibility of administration and demographic associations of a measure of cultural mistrust, the Cultural Mistrust Inventory (CMI), in African-American parents seeking healthcare.

Primary care physicians' attitudes regarding follow-up care for children with positive newborn screening results.

Background: Although primary care physicians are responsible for providing follow-up care after a positive newborn screen, little is known about their willingness or ability to do so.

Methods: A national mail survey of a random sample of 350 general pediatricians and 350 family physicians was conducted from April to June 2006.

Results: The response rate was 63% among pediatricians and 50% among family physicians.

After Flexner: the challenge.

In his article, "Abraham Flexner and the Black Medical Schools," Todd Savitt, MD critically describes how the Flexner Report effectively decimated African-American medical education as it existed at the beginning of the 20th century. We are now in the 21st century, and there are still few black physicians and medical students.

Parents' trust in their child's physician: using an adapted Trust in Physician Scale.

Objectives: To assess the performance of the Pediatric Trust in Physician Scale (Pedi-TiPS) that refers to a child's physician and is a modified version of the Trust in Physician Scale (TiPS), and to explore the association of trust to demographic variables.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional survey of parents in pediatric specialty and primary care sites. Parents completed an anonymous questionnaire that included the Pedi-TiPS.

Futility in evolution.

Must health care professionals provide treatments or interventions that they consider futile? Although much of the past and current debate about futility has centered on how to best define futility, it is the application of the concept in clinical decision making that is of central concern. Most physicians feel confident that they know futile treatment when they see it, but despite years of debate in scholarly journals, professional meetings, and popular media, consensus on a precise definition eludes us still. This article reviews numerous definitions of futility to illustrate the general lack of consensus over this concept.

End-of-life choices for African-American and white infants in a neonatal intensive-care unit: a pilot study.

Background: African-American adults are more likely than white adults to desire the continuation of life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) at the end of life. No studies have examined racial differences in parental end-of-life decisions for neonates.

Objective: To collect preliminary data to determine whether differences exist in the choices made by parents of African-American and white infants when a physician has recommended withholding or withdrawing LSMT from their infant to develop hypotheses for future work.

The relationship between motivation to volunteer, gender, cultural mistrust, and willingness to donate organs among Blacks.

The relationship between motivation to volunteer, gender, cultural mistrust, and the willingness of blacks to donate their organs, as well as the organs of relatives, was explored. Participants consisted of 107 black students attending a university located in the southwest. All participants were given the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI), Cultural Mistrust Inventory (CMI), Organ Donation Questionnaire (ODQ), and a background information questionnaire.