Keeping Your Kids Out of the Emergency Room

Last year America’s 76 million children made 27 million trips to hospital emergency departments—one for every three children. That represents a lot of fevers, coughs, sore ears, twisted ankles, and broken bones, plus the wide gamut of other illnesses and injuries children can experience. Whether or not an emergency room visit was warranted for each of these visits, however, is an entirely different story.

Keeping Your Kids Out of the Emergency Room is an essential guide to the most common illnesses, injuries, and ailments that send kids to the ER, and when particular symptoms warrant those trips or not. Christopher Johnson, a seasoned pediatrician, offers a go-to resource for all new parents and parents of young children, providing solid information on those instances when a trip to the ER is essential, when a trip to the doctor will suffice, and when a wait and see approach works best. He tackles all the most common ailments that cause parents to wonder if they should take their child to the emergency department. Since these problems appear as a bundle of symptoms, not a diagnosis, the book is organized around what parents actually see in front of them. It also teaches parents how emergency departments work, so the experience is understandable when a trip to the ER is essential.

With this helpful guide, any parent can learn practical things about which pediatric health problems need immediate attention, which do not, and how to tell the two apart. Knowing the differences, and understanding those situations that require immediate care and those that don’t, may help parents avoid the emergency room and still get the best care for their child in the meantime. Every new parent, or parent of young children, will find here a ready introduction to the most common childhood ailments, and when they rise to the level of true emergencies. Knowing what to do before a child becomes ill or injured will help parents make informed decisions when situations arise.

Christopher M. Johnson, MD, has been practicing pediatrics and talking to the parents of sick and injured children for thirty years. During much of his career, he was director of the Pediatric Critical Care Service at the Mayo Clinic and professor of pediatrics at Mayo Medical School, as well as director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Mayo Eugenio Litta Children’s Hospital. He is the author of Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face, How to Talk to Your Child’s Doctor: A Handbook for Parents, and How Your Child Heals (Rowman & Littlefield).
He writes a regular column on children’s health issues for PTA Magazine.