Beautiful...

One hour ago, I received a phone call from a pediatrician who works at the hospital in Grosseto. He requested information regarding the cochlear implant for the family of a newly diagnosed two month old baby.





Four months ago, my pediatrician and I began collaborating on a project involving Newborn Hearing Screening during which time he began collecting information from other pediatricians throughout the Tuscan Region to determine how many birthing hospitals actually performed the screening. Prior to this investigation, the hospital of Grosseto did not perform the screening. One week later, they began doing the screening. Two months later, this baby was diagnosed. Had the hospital not begun implementing the Newborn Hearing Screening program, who knows when this baby would have been diagnosed as being deaf?





*smile*

Btw, people are still commenting (123 and going strong) on the post from Sunday, December 14th, feel free to join in the fun...we've had a couple of beers, a cup of cappuccino and MM is giving me an education! Lol.

Doctors with a Hot Bedside Manner!

I'm dealing with two kids, my Dad and a husband in heat, while trying to build an empire. I'm a little overwhelmed, especially because I haven't been blogging. Blogging helps me maintain my sanity, what's left of it.

If I've been in limbo the past year and a half, now, I'm at the starting gate ready to bust out to take on the first lap (obviously I'd be running the Preakness). Waiting and waiting and waiting...the projects are lining up but they need to be organized and defined. In any case, I need to talk about two doctors: my pediatrician and my Cochlear Implant Surgeon.

When Ferdi gave me the opportunity to create a project for his association, I began surfing the internet regarding Newborn Hearing Screening and found a study in PEDIATRICS:
Primary Care Physicians' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Related to Newborn Hearing Screening
OI: 10.1542/peds.2006-1008
Pediatrics 2006;118;1357-1370
Mary Pat Moeller, Karl R. White and Lenore Shisler
that has an excellent questionnaire which evaluates the level of current knowledge of the Health Professionals working with our Deaf kids...and those to come.

I showed this questionnaire to Ferdi who was very interested in the idea and gave me the go ahead to proceed. Then, I showed it to my pediatrician who was Very enthusiastic about the idea, and who acknowledged that the knowledge level of issues in Deafness among pediatricians is lacking.

When I showed the questionnaire to my ci surgeon, he informed me that he had just had a book of guidelines for Newborn Hearing Screening in the region of Tuscany approved and that based on regional legislation, the Tuscan region mandated that all birthing hospitals had to perform the screening as of Oct. 2007.

Back to the pediatrician...
Dr. Giovanni Lenzi performed a sort of "preliminary investigation" as to exactly how many of the birthing hospitals regularly performed the Newborn Hearing Screening and found that some perform the entire screening process very well, some perform the screening process when "motivated," (puke),and some not at all.

Interesting.
The results of this little investigation apparently pissed off some people.
Niiiiiiiiiice.
One hospital coincidentally got their "broken" screening device "fixed" and began the screening process five days later.

I went to speak to my Cochlear Implant Surgeon, Professor Stefano Berrettini a few days ago. Now that is one dedicated surgeon, who has single-handedly created the NHS program for the region of Tuscany and who by chance would like to add the component of Parental Support to the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program that is in the initial phases of being actualized. He was also interested in the support of the Italian Federation of Pediatricians. Got that!

Do you know what he said to me?
He told me that he appreciated my professionalism, motivation and determination. He would like me to be a part of his team.
(You know he wanted to add that I'm a pain in the ass, but he is just way too nice:))

I think I might just be goin' back to college!
Look out!