Welcomes Vernora Hightower, M.D.
We are pleased to announce that Vernora Hightower, M.D., has joined Pediatric Care Centers. Dr. Hightower was born and raised in Chicago, Ill. She moved to New Orleans to attend Xavier University of Louisiana for her undergraduate degree, and upon graduation moved back to Chicago to attend the Rosalyn Franklin University/Chicago Medical School. She received her medical degree in 1996. There was never any question in her mind that she would become a pediatrician. “From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to be a pediatrician, even though no one in my family was involved in medicine,” she said. She has spent the last 17 years in pediatric practice, first in West Point, Miss., and later in Pine Bluff, Ark., where she was also a mentor/preceptor for the many family practice residents, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and medical students in training there. Dr. Hightower learned about Pediatric Care Centers while in Arkansas mentoring a former employee from Jacksonville who was training to become a physician’s assistant. The practice and location sounded appealing, so she applied and was hired to join the team. She and her family, her husband and fourth-grade daughter, are delighted with their new home. “It’s been a whirlwind coming to Jacksonville from my previous practice,” Dr. Hightower said. “In the last two years we’ve had many health challenges for my husband and my parents. But we really needed a change, and we are glad to be here with all of the activities and resources available, like the beach, the Blue Angels air show, and musical events.”
Wear Your Shirt Proudly!
We still have some Pediatric Care Centers shirts available for you, our valued patients and families. If you haven’t picked up your free shirt during the past year, just let us know during one of your visits. We’d be happy to send you home with a shirt while supplies last. The following sizes are still available. Children’s sizes: 12 months, 24 months, 2 and 3 Young adult size: XL
Santa’s On His Way!
Get ready for Santa! He’s going to make an early stop Dec. 5, from 1-5 p.m., in our Beaches office. We welcome one and all to come and have a photo made with Santa, courtesy of Pediatric Care Centers. You’re also welcome to snap your own pictures of jolly old St. Nick with your phone or camera. There’ll be juice boxes and candy canes for our visitors, too. Be sure to stop by for some face time with Santa!
Introducing New Nurse Practitioner Gina Wilson
We are happy to announce the addition of our new Nurse Practitioner Gina Wilson. This native of Harrisburg, N.C., holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Master of Science in Nursing from Duke University. She has three years of nursing experience at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We hired Gina earlier this year with the knowledge that she first had to fulfill a previous commitment. She traveled to the East African nation of Tanzania for service with Helping Babies Breathe, an organization founded by the American Academy of Pediatrics and international health care agencies to train local midwives in immediate post-birth resuscitation and supply them with the equipment they need to assist babies who do not breathe on their own. “We are so lucky in America to have an abundance of resources available to assist newborns,” Gina said. “In Tanzania, newborns are four to five times more likely to die when compared to America. Difficulty breathing causes a high percentage of these deaths, which in most cases are preventable. It is an honor to work with these midwives and to be a small part of saving newborn lives. On this last trip, I was able to hold one of those babies in my arms, and it was one of the most precious and surreal moments of my life.” Participation in Helping Babies Breathe is part of Gina’s continuing education at Duke, where she is finishing her doctoral studies in nursing through distance learning until graduation in May 2016. She and her husband Ryan are enjoying their move to Jacksonville and looking forward to pursuing their careers and home life in Northeast Florida.
Welcome, Dr. Mendoza!
We are happy to announce that Dr. Julio Mendoza has joined our Pediatric Care Centers family of health care providers. Dr. Mendoza’s experience is extensive and varied, including providing medical care at the world’s hot spots since completing his medical studies in Cuba. In 2005, he traveled to Pakistan for six months to help in that country’s recovery from a devastating earthquake. After returning to Cuba, he then traveled to Venezuela where he worked as a general physician for almost two years. He arrived in the United States in 2008, where he spent time at Miami Children’s Hospital – an experience that changed his life. “The children were so good to work with, so friendly and sincere,” he said. “It made me decide to specialize in pediatrics, and I’m glad I decided to take that path.” After passing the U.S. medical board exams in 2012 and spending three years in pediatric residency at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York City, Dr. Mendoza fulfilled another life wish – to make a home in Florida. He and his wife Anny, who is a dentist, moved to Jacksonville for his new position with Pediatric Care Centers. They welcomed the arrival of their son David eight months ago.
Preventing Obesity – Healthy Habits
Our pediatricians, nurse practitioners, and staff at Pediatric Care Center are excited to be promoting Healthy Habits, our activity-based program for the whole family. The goal of the program is the prevention of obesity. We focus on teaching our young families to become more active and helping kids learn to make healthy choices. We know you’re often busy and pressed for time. That’s why we suggest small changes that can make a big difference. Tips for Healthier Eating Choices 1. Teach your children that, like a car, our bodies need the right kind of fuel. If they are hungry they should choose healthy foods for fuel, not unhealthy ones like cookies and chips. 2. Use good portion control habits: Your kids should listen to their bodies’ cues on feeling full rather than cleaning their plate. Start with a small serving; offer seconds if asked. Use small plates and glasses. This really works! Encourage eating slowly so that the body has time to register fullness. Put portions on a separate plate; avoid eating out of a bag or box. Share dishes while eating out. This saves money and calories! Eat half; take half home in a go-box when eating out. 3. Pack a family snack bag: Make a family snack bag part of your daily routine. Use a fun portable container and pack it with healthy snacks like low-fat cheese sticks, grapes and air-popped popcorn. When the kids are hungry, they should know their snacks will come from the family snack bag. Make sure to fill each family member’s refillable water bottle when on the go. Fun Ways to Be Active Children love to play! Here are some tips to take advantage of the kids’ gift for play to encourage more exercise. Join in and bring out your “inner child!” Plan on weekly family bike rides to a favored neighborhood destination – the Red Box movie machine, breakfast spot or local park. Dance! Play the music on your phone or radio and let loose with the kids while cooking a meal. Or instead of watching TV, use your hairbrush as a “microphone”; dance and sing along with their favorites. Walk the dog together with the kids. Every member of the family, both human and canine, will enjoy it. Count steps. Have the kids use their pedometer from the Health Habits program. Reward those with the most steps with small, non-food prizes. Medical Experts Agree: Small Changes Can Make a Difference The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Sandra G. Hassink, M.D., suggests making one or two of these changes part of your regular routine to start, and then adding more over time. Kids are more likely to stick to these new habits if the whole family is involved, so make it a team effort. “This is not just about your one child,” Dr. Hassink said. “This is about the whole family moving toward a healthier lifestyle.”
Common Childhood Habits
The causes of habits remain unknown. Their repetitive nature suggests that they serve a soothing or calming process for the brain. Interestingly, even in adulthood many people cling to some of these self-comforting traits during times of stress: sucking on pencil tips or their fingers, pulling their earlobes, fingering their hair. Common Self-Comforting Habits Here are some of the most common self-comforting habits of middle childhood that concern parents: Thumb-sucking Body rocking Head banging Fingernail biting Cuticle picking Hair twirling Masturbating Growing Out of Certain Habits Some self-comforting habits – such as thumb-sucking and body rocking – begin in infancy and gradually fade in middle childhood. During these middle years, most thumb-suckers will confine their sucking to the privacy of their home, at bedtime, while watching TV or when they are upset. Often, this behavior is accompanied by other vestiges of earlier years, such as cuddling with a blanket. As children mature and develop greater self-control and self-understanding, their thumb-sucking usually disappears, most often by ages 6 to 8. Also, with increases in peer pressure, children tend to assume greater mastery over their behavior. Similarly, a small number of middle-years children exhibit the normal behavior of rocking themselves to sleep in bed. They may curl into a knee-to-chest position and rock with such vigor that the bed shakes and even bangs the walls until they are fast asleep. A few children roll their head back and forth, at times banging into the wall. Still others sit up and rock. As unsettling as parents may find these unusual habits, children may exhibit them every night in order to settle into sleep. The rhythmic motion seems necessary to soothe or calm the central nervous system in the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Other “Annoying” Habits Fingernail biting, cuticle picking, hair twirling and nose picking are also very common – and annoying – habits of childhood, developing between ages 3 and 6. This behavior may continue throughout middle childhood and perhaps longer. Like other self-comforting habits, they are tension reducers, “time-wasters,” and seem to be outside of consciousness or awareness. Frequency and Intensity The frequency and intensity of these habits tend to ebb and flow, often without apparent explanation or parental intervention. Some observers have noted that the child who bites his fingernails or picks his cuticles often causes bleeding or pain; perhaps this natural consequence plays a significant role in the eventual disappearance of the habit. In any case, these habits frequently fade with time. Management vs. Punishment As a first step in the simple management of your child’s self-comforting habits, ignore them! Most commonly, they will disappear with time. When you call attention to them with harsh words, ridicule, or punishment, the tension that the habit presumably relieves will increase, and the habit will get worse. Punishment is not an effective way to eradicate habits. Ignoring these habits, however, can be a difficult process for most parents. After all, if the mother or father finds a habit irritating or frustrating, ignoring it does not make the feelings disappear. Even so, try to withhold your negative comments and wait for the habit to pass. If your child sucks her thumb or bites her fingernails, she may be interested in overcoming the habit and thus will cooperate with your own efforts toward that goal. Try using these techniques: When you notice that your child is not doing the behavior for extended periods, reward her in some agreed-upon way. Use over-the-counter agents, such as bitter-tasting compounds that can be placed on the fingers or the cuticles, to remind your child when she begins to bite or suck her thumb. This approach has a relatively low rate of success, but it is simple and, with your youngster’s cooperation, may be an effective strategy. Ask your pharmacist about these products. Positive reinforcement is the most successful way to produce a change in behavior. Accentuate and reward the new behavior you want to see adopted. Star charts and daily rewards are very helpful. Last Updated 5/5/2015 Source Caring for Your School-Age Child: Ages 5 to 12 (Copyright © 2004 American Academy of Pediatrics) The information contained in this article should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.
When to call the pediatrician ~ Fever
The most important things you can do when your child has a fever are to improve your child’s comfort by making sure they drink enough fluids to stay hydrated and monitor for signs and symptoms of a serious illness. It is a good sign if your child plays and interacts with you after receiving medicine for discomfort. Call your child’s doctor right away if your child has a fever and Looks very ill, is unusually drowsy, or is very fussy Has been in a very hot place, such as an overheated car Has other symptoms, such as a stiff neck, severe headache, severe sore throat, severe ear pain, an unexplained rash, or repeated vomiting or diarrhea Has immune system problems, such as sickle cell disease or cancer, or is taking steroids Has had a seizure Is younger than 3 months (12 weeks) and has a temperature of 100.4°F (38.0°C) or higher Fever rises above 104°F (40°C) repeatedly for a child of any age Also call your child’s doctor if Your child still “acts sick” once his fever is brought down. Your child seems to be getting worse. The fever persists for more than 24 hours in a child younger than 2 years. The fever persists for more than 3 days (72 hours) in a child 2 years of age or older. Last Updated 11/4/2014 Source Fever and Your Child (Copyright © 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics, updated 5/2012)
Newborn Eye Color
New parents often ask what color I think the baby’s eyes are going to be. I never answer this question until the child is at least 1 year old; I mean, what if the parents believe me and use my answer to make major life decisions? When we talk about eye color, we’re really talking about the appearance of the iris, the muscular ring around the pupil that controls how much light enters the eye. After all, the pupil will always be black, except in flash photos, and the whites (sclera) should stay pretty much white, although jaundice may turn them yellow and inflammation may make them look pink or red. Gray or Blue Eyes at Birth Iris color, just like hair and skin color, depends on a protein called melanin. We have specialized cells in our bodies called melanocytes whose job it is to go around secreting melanin where it’s needed, including in the iris. When your baby is born his eyes will be gray or blue, as melanocytes respond to light, and he has spent his whole life in the dark. Eye Color Changes Over Time Over time, if melanocytes only secrete a little melanin, your baby will have blue eyes. If they secrete a bit more, his eyes will look green or hazel. When melanocytes get really busy, eyes look brown (the most common eye color), and in some cases they may appear very dark indeed. Because it takes about a year for melanocytes to finish their work it can be a dicey business calling eye color before the baby’s first birthday. The color change does slow down some after the first 6 months of life, but there can be plenty of change left at that point. Eye color is a genetic property, but it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as you might have learned in biology class. •Two blue-eyed parents are very likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it won’t happen every single time. •Two brown-eyed parents are likely (but not guaranteed) to have a child with brown eyes. •If you notice one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the chances of having a blue-eyed baby go up a bit. •If one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, odds are about even on eye color. •If your child has one brown eye and one blue eye, bring it to your doctor’s attention; he probably has a rare genetic condition called Waardenburg syndrome. Cross-Eyed? Parents also often note that their newborns’ eyes appear to cross from time to time. For the first 6 months of life this can be normal. To begin with, to look at something the brain has to know where to point the eyes. For the first 2 to 4 weeks of life vision is not accurate enough for the baby’s eyes to find a target a lot of the time. Parents often feel like their newborns are looking past them rather than at them, because they are. By the fourth week of life, however, your baby will focus on your face if you’re cradling him. Most visual development occurs in the brain, not in the eyes themselves. One of the greatest challenges for the developing brain is to coordinate visual signals from one side to the other. Nerve signals from the eyes travel through optic nerves and split off to both sides of the brain. To make sense of those signals, the 2 sides of the brain have to cooperate, comparing information and coordinating eye movement in the desired direction. Until age 2 months you may notice your infant will follow your face or a toy a little way, then lose it as it crosses from one side to the other. By 2 months, however, he should be able to track from right to left and back again. The next big visual milestone occurs at 6 months of age. By this time the 2 sides of the brain are on good terms with each other. Until this point the eyes track together as long as they both have something to look at, but if one is deprived of input (from being covered by a hat, for example), it might drift off in its own direction. By 6 months of age the eyes should continue looking the same direction even if one of them is covered temporarily. We test this in the clinic by covering 1 eye for 3 seconds, then suddenly uncovering it and looking to see if it’s still tracking with the opposite eye. We call this test the cover-uncover test. Sometimes the shape of a child’s face makes it look as though the eyes are crossed even when they are not. A child with a broad nasal bridge may appear to have an inward-looking eye, when in fact he’s just looking off to the side. You can check this by watching the light reflection in your child’s eyes from a window or lamp; if it falls in the same place on each eye, the eyes are working together. Even with office screening, however, we don’t always catch an eye that tends to deviate. Deviations occur more often when the child is tired. If you ever notice that your 6-month-old or older child has an eye that doesn’t always look the same way as its partner, alert his doctor. It’s critical that an eye specialist (ophthalmologist) examine the child. What some people call a lazy eye (amblyopia) may be a sign that one eye doesn’t see as clearly as the other. When the brain is forced to make 1 picture from 2 very different inputs, it starts to ignore the signals from the worse eye. Over time this process becomes irreversible, leading to partial blindness in the weaker eye. In most cases, you should address the problem before the child turns 3 to ensure he’ll grow up with normal depth perception. Treatments for amblyopia vary based on the cause and severity of the condition. Some children require
November Employee of the Month ~ Lallaine Villegas
How long have you worked for Pediatric Care Center? I started working for Dr. Benitez at his old practice in 1999. When he opened Pediatric Care Center I naturally went with him. So, a grand total of 15 years! Do you have any pets? No Where did you go to high school? I went to St. Augustine Catholic School in the Philippines, 9-11th grade. My senior year I attended Sandalwood High School. Tell me what degree you are getting? I’m currently taking classes at FSCJ and hoping to get a degree in nursing. Do you have any hobbies? How do you spend your time off? NO, I spend my day off cleaning my house, studying and taking care of my children. Side note ~ Lallaine has four school age children including a set of twins and is married to a wonderful, active duty sailor serving in the Navy! What is the favorite part of your job? I like everything about my job, especially my co-workers because they’re fun and easy to work with.