Pulse
Read This and Call Me in the Morning
Three Minnesota doctors have written books to teach kids about health and health care.
When Hazem Sedra, M.D., took a job in the northwestern Minnesota town of Thief River Falls four years ago, the family physician, who had just completed a fellowship in women’s health, was surprised to learn that more than half of his patients were children. He was even more amazed when he realized why. With winter lasting nearly six months, the common cold was—well—common. Worried parents would bring their kids to the clinic at the first sign of symptoms. Not only that, he says, “the antibiotics that were given for every cough, cold, runny nose, and fever were staggering.”
Sedra was also taken aback by the large number of patients with ear tubes and without tonsils or adenoids—not to mention the cases of MRSA infection he encountered. “It was because of all these antibiotics that we as practitioners were just giving patients without much teaching and counseling,” he says.
Sedra knew he needed to do something to address the problem in a way that was meaningful to his patients. That’s when the idea for a book occurred to him. Last year, Sedra sat down at his computer and over the course of a month wrote “Cyrus the Virus,” a story that sounds as if it’s written for toddlers but is aimed at parents.
The story begins, “Little Johnnie has a cold/Cough, cough, cough/All night and thru the day/His nose drips, drips, drips/Mama holds him and all he does is/Fuss, fuss, fuss.” Johnnie eventually learns that amoxicillin and penicillin won’t make Cyrus the virus go away any quicker than TLC.
Sedra showed a draft of the story to colleagues and then began handing it out (as four printed pages) to parents after he counseled them about viral symptoms, how long to wait before seeking help, when antibiotics are indicated, and the consequences of antibiotic overuse. Sedra, who now practices in the nearby town of Warren but still sees many of his patients from Thief River Falls, thinks parents are beginning to learn that their children don’t need antibiotics every time they get a cold.
Sedra put his passion for writing on hold during medical school and residency but took it up again when he started practicing. He recently wrote a couple of stories for older children that have earned him praise from his 8-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
He’s currently looking for an illustrator and publisher for “Cyrus the Virus,” and he wants to do more writing on health issues. He and a colleague have kicked around the idea of doing a series on topics ranging from obesity to immunizations.
The latter may be fodder for his next book, as Sedra admits he has been shocked by the number of parents who don’t get their children immunized. “It’s one of the marvels of medicine,” he says of vaccines. “It’s why children are doing so well and are growing and are healthy. We look at them [parents] with wonder.” Perhaps, ... “Dot the Shot”?
Nursing an Idea
Liz Swanson, vice president of human resources for HealthPartners, was thinking about how to get young people interested in nursing as a career when the idea of writing a book for kids occurred to her. She had heard that by the time children reach middle school, most have ruled out working in health care and thought a book might be one way to reach kids before they make up their mind. Swanson shared the idea while giving a speech; an audience member told her afterward about a HealthPartners doctor she might want to call.
Vivian Rider, M.D., had a couple of children’s books under her literary belt when Swanson contacted her in 2007. A pediatrician by day at the HealthPartners Clinic in Coon Rapids, but an artist and writer by night, Rider was intrigued by Swanson’s idea and agreed to take on the project. She admits she likes a creative challenge.
“When I first starting thinking about it, everything that I came up with sounded like a 1950s movie—Have you ever thought of being a nurse?” she says, mimicking the style of narrators in old science films. She was picturing photos of nurses in white caps when she realized the book needed to be completely different from that if it were to interest kids today. It had to be funny and have great, colorful illustrations.
Rider decided to address her readers directly: “If you’re a kid, you probably think of a nurse as a kind-faced woman wearing a shirt with pink and blue teddy bears …,” the story begins. On the next page, a very wide-eyed child is face to face with a tray of syringes. The story continues, “But nursing is NOT just giving a shot.” (Hence, the book’s title.) It goes on to describe the variety of things nurses do and the places they can work.
When the first draft was completed, Rider and Swanson gathered a dozen kids to get their feedback. Before hearing the story, the children confirmed their suspicion that kids’ opinions of nursing weren’t great. One boy said that he didn’t want to be a nurse because he thought all nurses did was turn on the computers for doctors. After hearing the story, all the children said they were more interested in nursing as a career than they had been. But some still had reservations. Nursing sounded scary—like a really hard job and that it would be too sad, they said. So Rider went back to her draft and rewrote a section directly addressing those fears.
Last year, HealthPartners printed 400 copies of the book, 200 of which have been distributed to needy children by the Minneapolis Junior League. The other copies have been placed in HealthPartners’ waiting rooms or sold. Rider hopes to do another print run this year and market the book to other health care providers.
She hopes the book will be read “far and wide” and encourage more children to go into nursing. As she points out, these are the people who will one day be taking care of her.
Help Yourself
Developmental behavioral pediatrician Timothy Culbert, M.D., knew from experience that kids could do a lot to manage their emotions, anxiety, stress, and even pain. But teaching them techniques such as acupressure, meditation, and guided imagery one by one, visit by visit was slow going.
He began thinking about how he could get the word out about all those things in a more efficient way. Inspired by a consumer market that was exploding with books about health and wellness for adults, he proposed to his colleague, nurse practitioner Rebecca Kajander, that they write a series of books for kids.
Culbert and Kajander started shopping the idea around to publishers, one of which eventually referred them to Judy Galbraith, owner and founder of Free Spirit Publishing, a Minneapolis company that specializes in books that promote young people’s social and emotional health. Galbraith was enthusiastic about the project.
Although Culbert had never written a children’s book before, he had ideas about what he wanted. He believed the books should appeal to a range of ages and be colorful, graphically intensive, and user-friendly. “The whole idea was to write for consumers or patients so they could buy them and not need any professional intervention to use them,” he says.
Culbert says that he and Kajander were involved in selecting an artist to illustrate the series, and he estimates they each spent several hundred hours on the writing and editing of the first three books, which Free Spirit published simultaneously in 2007. Be the Boss of Your Stress, Be the Boss of Your Sleep, and Be the Boss of Your Pain are sold alone or in a kit that includes tools to help kids do certain techniques—a pinwheel, for example, to help them learn breathing exercises.
Culbert, who is medical director of integrative medicine and cultural care at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, says he believes the books are reaching their intended audience, kids ages 7 to 12 years. But he’s also found they make an impression on adults, who like them because they’re straightforward and humorous. And he knows they’re finding their way into clinics. A colleague at the Cleveland Clinic told him they were using Be the Boss of Your Pain with kids who had chronic pain.
Culbert says he doesn’t recommend them to his patients at Children’s because of concern about conflict of interest. But the bookstore there sells them, and colleagues hand them out. He donates profits from books sold at Children’s to the hospital.
Two more “Be the Boss” books are in the works. “It has been great fun,” Culbert says of writing the series. “I must say. It lets my creative side have an outlet.”—Carmen Peota