Health and Parenting
COVID-19 and IEPs: Education for children with special needs
When Massachusetts shut down its public schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19, educators faced a huge challenge. With little time to prepare, school districts had to redesign classroom lesson plans for close to a million students. The interrupted school year has been especially hard on kids with individualized education programs (IEPs). An IEP is ... Read More about COVID-19 and IEPs: Education for children with special needs
Clinical Care
Radiology of COVID-19 infection in children: Imaging findings and recommendations
Key takeaways:· Lung images in children with COVID-19 show unique features, including the halo sign.· Chest X-ray and CT images differ significantly from early to late infection.· New imaging guidelines recommend when to perform imaging studies on children with COVID-19. As more children become infected with the coronavirus causing COVID-19, lung imaging shows that the ... Read More about Radiology of COVID-19 infection in children: Imaging findings and recommendations
Research
Disparities in travel time to COVID-19 testing sites may bias case estimates
As the U.S. economy begins to reopen after two months of lockdown, states and counties are using local data on COVID-19 incidence to inform their plans. But a new analysis highlights an inconvenient truth. Geographic access to COVID-19 testing sites is as uneven as access to health care overall, meaning that local estimates of COVID-19 ... Read More about Disparities in travel time to COVID-19 testing sites may bias case estimates
Health and Parenting
Tips for getting through the rest of this school year — and possibly next
If you’re like most parents, you’re not trained to be a teacher or a tutor. And yet, many parents are finding themselves in these roles since schools closed in March. For many, it’s a role that can be fraught with frustration and guilt. If you don’t make sure your child keeps up with schoolwork, will ... Read More about Tips for getting through the rest of this school year — and possibly next
Our Community
Cancer and COVID-19: Ethics guidelines for resource allocation
Main findings: Hospitals should create guidelines in advance to ensure cancer patients are fairly represented in possible resource allocation decisions — in COVID-19 and other emergencies.A cancer diagnosis should be considered as any other underlying health condition.Decisions about distributing limited resources should not be made by a patient’s physician. As the COVID-19 pandemic began surging ... Read More about Cancer and COVID-19: Ethics guidelines for resource allocation
Our Community
Taking care of our community during COVID-19 and beyond
Although COVID-19 has affected the health of most children less acutely than adults, many young people who live in the communities surrounding Boston Children’s Hospital are experiencing the virus’s impact in other troubling ways as their families struggle with food insecurity and are having trouble meeting many other basic needs. “Right now, there’s been a ... Read More about Taking care of our community during COVID-19 and beyond
Patient Stories
Cancer won’t stop me, and neither will COVID-19
Most people my age look at COVID-19 as a burden on their everyday lives of seeing friends, hanging out, and going to college. I see it differently. As an active cancer patient being treated for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), I am immunocompromised. This puts me at especially high risk for contracting COVID-19, and my ... Read More about Cancer won’t stop me, and neither will COVID-19
Research
Tracking an organism’s development, cell by cell
A new mouse model allows scientists to track every cell in the body — from the embryo stage until adulthood. The system is the first of its kind and should yield a greater understanding of development, aging, and disease. Scientists described it last week in the journal Cell. “The dream of many developmental biologists for ... Read More about Tracking an organism’s development, cell by cell
Health and Parenting
Keeping up with childhood vaccines and screenings during the COVID-19 outbreak
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, many parents have been understandably hesitant to take their kids to their health care provider for routine health care, such as vaccines and health screenings. But pediatricians worry that this trend could open the door to outbreaks of other types of childhood illnesses, such as measles and whooping cough. We recently ... Read More about Keeping up with childhood vaccines and screenings during the COVID-19 outbreak
Our Community
The polio outbreak of 1955: Lessons from an epidemic
“This is going to be a tough year.” Claire McCarthy was a young physical therapist in early March 1955 when orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Grice, made this observation. At the time, Boston Children’s Hospital was the receiving center for adults and children with polio in New England. The hospital typically saw an upsurge in cases ... Read More about The polio outbreak of 1955: Lessons from an epidemic